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softcilk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


Vo  l  u  m  e  2 


Indigo  has  put  together  the  most  versatile  expansion 
product  available  for  the  new  IBM  PC  and  IBM  PC/XT 


4  most  requested  hardware  functions 

The  PC  MuitiPak™  includes  a  serial  communications  port,  a  real 
time  clock  calendar  with  a  10  year  lithium  battery,  0  to  256K 
memory  and  optional  parallel  printer  port.  The  PC  MuitiPak™ 
without  the  parallel  printer  port  is  ideal  for  users  with  the  IBM 
monochrome/paraliel  printer  adapter  installed. 

Zero  memory  option 

The  PC  MuitiPak™  is  available  with  no  memory  installed  so  you  can 
fiJJ  your  I  /  0  needs  today  and  still  have  memory  expansion 
capability  to  an  additional  256K  for  your  future  needs.  This  makes 
the  PC  MuitiPak™  the  perfect  mate  for  the  new  IBM  PC  and  IBM 
PC  /  XT. 

4  software  packages 

The  PC  MuitiPak™  includes  our  four  most  popular  software 
packages,  Drive-H™  converts  32K  to  320K  of  extra  memory  into  an 
ultra -fast  drive.  Spool-1 1™  utilizes  up  to  64 K  of  extra  memory  as  a 
printer  buffer  and  eliminates  valuable  time  spent  waiting  on  the 
printer.  PrinMt™  prints  any  IBM  text  or  graphics  screen  to  Epson 
printers.  Color-lt™  prints  screens  to  IDS  printers.  Color  images  can 
be  printed  on  IDS  prism  printers.  These  software  programs  have 
received  critical  acclaim  in  Infoworld,  Softalk,  PC  Age  and  Creative 
Computing  magazines.  Thousands  have  been  sold  separately.  This 
$200  retail  value  is  included  in  the  PC  MuitiPak™  at  no  additional 
charge.  DOS  2.0  Compatible. 

5  year  warranty 


$297 


*  ALL  SOFTWARE 
INCLUDED 

•  NO  INSTALLED 
MEMORY 

64K-S365,  126K  S432,  l92K’£d99.  256K^565 
PARALLEL  PORT  OPTION  ADD  130 
64K  MEMORY  EXPANSION  KIT  $87 

SOFTWARE  AVAILABLE  SEPARATELY 
DRiV&rr  £59.95,  SPOOL4T  $44,95 


VISA* 


Indigo  products  may  Oe  found  at  Compute  rLarvJ  and 
other  fine  stores. 


PRINT4T  $44,95,  COLOR  IT  $4995 


indigo: 


Outer  And  Customer  Inqulita  call  TOLL  FREE  f  PH  Q  j  f" 

In  Texas  Call  Collect  (713)  ^  lU  O  j  O  1  V.  I  I  io,  1  1  i 


100  E,  NASA  Rd.  1t  Suit*  106,  Wafasler.  Texas  77696 


“VersaForm  saved  us 
hiring  two  people V 


By  Ken  Silverman, 

President,  International  Datawares,  Inc. 


My  company,  International  Datawares, 
is  a  manufacturer  and  wholesale 
distributor  of  media  storage  devices  for 
the  computer  industry.  It  has  a  line  of 
over  62  different  items  dealing  with 
media  storage,  mailing,  shipping  and 
so  on. 

With  more  than  3,000  orders  a  year,  the 
staff  was  often  processing,  shipping 
and  invoicing  20  or  more  orders  a  day. 
Getting  better  operational  control  of 
the  business,  without  adding  more  staff, 
became  my  biggest  headache. 

“It  took  a  tittle  searching, 
but  I  finally  found  VersaForm , 
the  business  database V 

What  the  business  really  needed  was 
a  powerful  database  manager  that  was 
easy  to  use.  Impossible?  Not  at  all. 
VersaForm  gives  our  company  the 
power  and  processing  speed  of  a  com¬ 
puterized  database,  combined  with 
the  simplicity  and  convenience  of  using 
our  familiar  business  forms. 

“ Now  we  process  everything 
that  comes  in  or  out  of  the 
business  with  VersaForm V 

VersaForm  processes  and  records 
(and  even  prints,  when  necessary) 
everything  that  comes  in  or  goes 
out  of  the  business.  Orders.  Invoices. 
Packing  Slips.  Labels  for  shipment.  The 
shipment  itself.  And  then,  it  provides 
the  best  thing  of  all:  monthly  reports  for 
our  accountant! 

VersaForm  is  like  an  electronic  file 
cabinet  that  stores  all  this  information, 
and  puts  it  at  my  fingertips  when  I 
need  it!  And  it’s  designed  with  a  non¬ 
technical  user  in  mind,  so  we  had 
none  of  the  usual  technical  database 
headaches. 

“Our  accounting  fees  were  cut 
in  half \ •  •and  the  accountant 
loves  it V 

Since  all  the  business  transactions 
are  recorded  with  VersaForm,  it  takes 
just  a  little  over  an  hour  a  month  to 


pull  together  every  managing  report  that 
our  CPA  needs.  Including  the  Sales 
Journal,  Deposits  for  the  month  by  day, 
Receivables  Journal,  Tax  Liability 
Statement,  even  the  Bank  Reconciliation 
Statement. 

This  makes  the  work  for  our  accountant 
so  easy,  the  fees  were  cut  in  half,  and 
his  time  is  put  to  much  more  profitable 
use.  (He  loves  it). 

“Our  full-time  bookkeeper  is 
VersaForm!9 

VersaForm  does  it  all  now.  It  locates, 
controls,  and  interrelates 
just  about  any  kind  of  infor¬ 
mation.  It  handles  customer 
orders  and  inventory.  It  H 

fills  out  invoices,  statements  ■ 
and  mailing  labels.  It  prints  I 
reports  for  the  accountant, 
and  does  the  calculating 
for  these  functions  auto¬ 
matically.  It  even  writes  out 
the  checks.  In  fact,  it  I 

handles  all  the  bookkeeping  I  Sgg 
so  efficiently,  we  thought 


it  was  about  time  to  start  expanding. 

“ Welcome  to  the  line, 
VersaForm!9 

There’s  no  better  endorsement  we 
could  give  than  to  carry  VersaForm  as 
part  of  the  company  line.  Speaking 
from  experience,  VersaForm  is  the  most 
important  database  and  bookkeeping 
system  a  small  business  can  buy.  It’s 
truly  in  a  class  of  its  own. 

We’ll  deliver  VersaForm  with  a  complete 
30-day  money-back  guarantee.  It’s 
available  now  for  just  $339.00  for  floppy 

gdisk  system  (Reg.  $389). 

And  to  make  it  even 
easier  for  you  to  get 
started,  for  a  limited  time 
we’ll  send  you  a  FREE 
pre- designed  Application 
Template  with  your  order 
(worth  up  to  $49.95). 

So  why  wait?  You’ve  got 
h|1I  nothing  to  lose,  and 
^clll  :(  control  of  your  business 
*  to  gain.  Fill  in  the  form 
I  r  ' ; - Sy  !  below  right  now. 


Please  send  me _ VersaForm  Business  Database  Programs .  I  under¬ 

stand  1  may  return  these  materials  within  30  days  of  receipt  for  a  full  refund  if  not  completely 
satisfied. 

□  Check  or  money  order  enclosed. 

□  Charge  to  my:  □  Visa  □  MasterCard 

Exp.  Date _  Card  No — - - 

□  C.O.D.  (Add  $10) 


ADDRESS  (NO  BOX  NO.,  PLEASE) 

cFtt 

Hardware  Choices  and  Cost 

□  Apple  I!  (floppy) 

□  Apple  II  (hard) 

□  Apple  III  (floppy/ hard) 

□  IBM  PC 

□  IBM  XT 


Template  Choices: 

□  Invoicing 

□  Purchase  Order 

□  Mailing  List 

□  Cash  Receipts  Journal 

□  Expense  Journal/Distribution 


California  residents  add  sales  tax.  (Please  allow  3-4  weeks  for  deliveiy.) 

For  ordering  or  to  get  more  information,  mail  to:  International  Datawares,  Inc,,  910  George 
Street,  Santa  Clara,  CA  95050 

Or  phone:  (800)  538-8157  x  934.  Inside  CA:  (800)  672-3470  x  934 


softcilk 

for  the  IBM  Personal  C  o  m  p  u  t  e  r 


Features 


Compaq  Plus:  Ten  Megabytes  To  Go 

The  Compaq  gets  a  hard  disk. 

Mark  Kellner . 233 


1983  Marketalk  Reviews  Index . 246 


Exec  RoseSoft 

Eileen  and  David  Rose  build  macros  into  micros, 

Kevin  Goldstein . * . 34 


Socha s  Toolbox:  Save  Your  Phosphor 

A  program  called  Scrnsave  takes  the  heat  off  your  moni¬ 
tor  screen. 

John  Socha . 80 


Holiday  Gift  Guide 

A  merry  collection  of  stocking  stuffers  from  accessories  to 
word  processing  software  * . . . . .  97 


Junior  Debut 

After  nearly  a  year  of  rumors.  Big  Blue  un¬ 
veils  the  littlest  pc. 

John  Socha . 45 


The  Basic/ Assembly  Line 

A  subroutine  that  enables  Basic  to  catch  all 
filename  errors, 

Howard  Glosser . 54 


XT/370  and  3270-PC  Unveiled 

IBM's  new  muscle  micros  deliver  mainframe 
might. 

John  Dickinson  . . . . . . . 77 


2 


softcilk 


Columns 

The  Basic  Solution,  by  Joe  Juhasz  * . 

Boards  and  Buses,  by  Kevin  Goldstein 

. 262 

Comm  Lines,  by  Kevin  Goldstein . 

. 24 

Micro  Finance,  by  Ken  Landis  . . . . . .  90 

Pascal  from  Begin  to  End,  by  Bruce 

Webster  and  Deirdre  Wendt . 230 

The  Printed  Word,  by  John  Dickinson  238 

The  Processed  Word,  by  Terry  Tinsley  Datz 
and  F.  Lloyd  Datz . 49 

The  Profit  Plot,  by  Jack  Grushcow . 225 

Questions  and  Answers,  by  Nancy  Andrews . 20 

The  Right  To  Assemble,  by  Ray  Duncan . 281 


System  Notebook,  by  Alan  Boyd . 67 


Departments 


Bestsellers  _ _ _ _ 

Classified  Advertising 

Contest . * . 

Crosstalk . 

Marketalk  News . 

Marketalk  Reviews . 

Newspeak . 

Tradetalk  ,  * ,  *  v  *w  -  *  *  < » . . 


.  * ,  287 

. 8 

. 4 

. 10 

....  257 
. .  ♦  247 
. . . .  269 
. . . .  235 


Cover  illustration  by  Bryce  tee. 


Abacus  Associates  . 

. . . ,  .  217 

Micro  Warehouser  . 

. 20 

ABC  Computer  Peripherals  .  . 

. 143 

Multi -Tech  Systems  . , 

...  161 

Access  Micro . „  . . .  . . 

_ 1G8 

Muse  Software  . 

. ...  127 

Acorn  Software  . 

....  193 

My  Supplier . 

. .  .  106 

Al  Design . 

....  141 

Network  Consulting,  Inc,  , . . . 

159,250 

The  Alternate  Key  . . 

...  266 

Newburyport  Computer 

American  Training  International  .  , ,  1? 

Accessories  ,  „ . 

Ampersand  . . . . . . . 

. IS 

NF  Systems  Ltd . 

,...116 

Ann  Arbor  Software  . . 

....  20  7 

Peter  Norton  . 

. ,  245 

Applied  MicroSystems . 

144-145 

Oak  Tree  Computing . 

. .  ,  .  164 

AST  Research . . 

.  6-7,103 

Omni  International  . . 

. ....  50 

Atari  . . . 

. . ,  12-13 

Omni  Software  Systems  ..... 

. 77 

Automated  Information  Systems  .  „  157 

One  Step  Software . 

. ...  125 

Basic  Business  Software . 

....  243 

Opt-Tech  Data  Processing _ 

. 43 

Beaman  Porter  . . . 

....  278 

Orchid  Technology . 

. ,  72-73 

Best  Programs . 

....  177 

Orion  Software . 

.  . . 101 

Blaise  Computing . 

...  147 

Pacific  Info  tech  Corp . . . 

. ...  286 

Bourbakir  Inc . 

. 283 

Palantir  Software  . 

. ...  148 

Bullish  Investment  Software  .  . 

.....  227 

Panama*  . .  . . . . 

,  .  ,  ,  235 

Busi-Math  .... . . 

...214 

PC-Demo . . 

. ...  287  | 

California  Design  Works . 

.....  67 

PC+  Products  . . . . 

, . . .  215 

Cameo  Electronics  . , 

. 91 

PCsoftware .  42,123,288 

Cdex  Corporation  .  „ ,  „ , .  t , , . 

. . , .  167 

Pegasus . . . 

162,259 

Charter  Software  . 

. ...  275 

Personal  CAD  Systems  . . 

. 87 

Tom  Ciulik . . 

. ...  102 

Photon  Software . 

. ...  258 

Comark  . . 

, 10 

Potential  Software  . 

. 236 

Comprehensive  Software  Support  , ,  21 

Prelude  Computer  Corporation 

. , . 260 

Computer  Case  Company  .  .  . 

....  68 

Prentice-Hall,  Inc . 

136-137 

Computer  Creations . 

. . .  . 139 

Professional  Computer  Store 

. ...  213 

Computer  Innovations.  Jnc,  ,  . 

. 70 

Professional  Software  _ 

. 11 

Computer  Inventory 

Pryority  Software . 

. 27 

Control  Inc . 

.....  85 

Pure  Data  Ltd . 

. 93 

Consumers  Software,  Inc . 

_ 115 

Pyxel  Applications . . 

. . ,  268 

Contemporary  ComputerWear 

.  .  .  252 

Qubie  Distributing  . . . 

. ...  237 

Context  Management . 

. . . .  107 

Rana  Systems  . . 

. .  39,61 

Continental  Software  . , . 

. , , , .  53 

Read  i Ware  Systems  . 

,  ...  280 

Curtis  Manufacturing 

109,165 

Reston  Publishing . . . . 

.  79,199 

Cygnus  . 

. 96 

Rocky  Mountain  Software 

Cypher . * . . . 

. ...  270 

Systems  . . . 

. , , ,  271 

Data  Base  Decisions . 

. 74 

Rogue  River  Software  . 

...  218 

Datamensions  . . 

. . . ,  1S5 

RoseS  oft . 

...  119 

Davidson  &  Associates  . , . „ „ . 

, .  * .  191 

Satellite  Software  International 

....  19 

Decision  Support  Software  .  ,  . 

_ 14 

Sate  i  Software . 

. ,  170 

Digital  Engineering  Croup  .  .  . 

. ...  179 

Sawhney  Sof  tware  . 

, ...  155 

Digital  Research  . . 

. 37 

Seasoned  Systems . 

. 32 

Digital  Supply . . . 

. 23 

Security  Microsystems 

Distributed  Computing  Systems  ...  69 

Consultants  . . . 

.  .  .  110 

Earth  Data  Corporation  ..... 

.  ....  26 

Siechert  k  Wood  Technical 

Ensign  Software  . . 

. S3 

Publications . 

...  203 

Europa,  Inc.  . . . 

.  ...  247 

SJB  Distributors  . , . . . _ _ _ _ _ 

...  279 

Financier  . , , . 

. 65 

Small  Business  Systems  Group  . 

...196 

FlipTrack  Learning  Systems  . . 

...  263 

Smith  Micro  Software  ........ 

...  255 

FMJ . 

. 78 

Softalk .  75,242,256 

FriendlySoft  . IS,  120-123 

Soft  Design  . . 

...  228 

Funk  Software . 

.  ...  261 

Softquest  . . . 

.  189 

Gourmet  Software  . 

. 39 

Softset  . . . . . . . . . 

....  31 

HammerLab . 

.  ...  229 

SoftStyle,  Inc .  153,222,248 

Harvard  Associates  ......... 

. 60 

Software  Arts  . 

62-63 

Hauppauge  Computer  Works  . 

,  ...  223 

The  Software  Guild  . „ , 

172-173 

Healthware  . . 

, ...  251 

Software  Laboratories . 

. . .  129 

Hercules  Computer  Technology 

...  25 

Software  Link  . . . ,  „ . 

, . , .  52 

Hewlett-Packard  . . 

.  .  56-57 

Software  Products 

High  Techniques /Quad ram  . . 

.  ,  , .  29 

International . 

.  40-41 

Howard  Software  Services  . . . 

Cover  4 

Soft  Wares  And  Technologies  .  . 

, . .  220 

Human  Systems  Dynamics  . .  . 

. 16 

Soft  Word  Systems  . , 

, 169 

IBM  Persona]  Computer  . 

104-105 

SolveWare  . . 

...  30 

Indigo  Data  Systems  . 

Cover  2 

Southeastern  Software . 

. . .  276 

Individual  Software  . 

. 5 

Specialty  Designs  . . . 

. . .  262 

Infocom  . . . . . 

. .  89-90 

SSR  Corporation 

, .  .  254 

Innovative  Software  . .  52, 224, Cover  3 

STB  Systems  . . . 

...  38 

Insoft  . 112.- 

■113.253 

Stone  fit  Associates . 

. . .  187 

Integral  Quality  . 

. ..  .212 

Stratcom  Systems . . . 

.  ...  36 

International  Datawares  . 

Strategic  Simulations,  Inc . 

.  * ,  175 

The  Iron  Interface  Group  _ 

....  m 

Strategic  Software  Systems  .... 

.  . . 195 

Laboratory  Microsystems  .... 

. ...  277 

SubLogic  Corporation . 

,201 

Lewis  Lee  Corporation  ....... 

. ...  133 

Sundex  Software  Corp . 

...  239 

Lifetree  Software  .  . . 

. 33 

Symmetric  Software . 

.  .  .  234 

LinTek  Computer  Accessories  . 

. 84 

Systems  Management  Associates 

;  .  .  273 

MediSoft  . 

, ...  232 

Tailored  Data  . 

,  ,  22 

Megahaus  Corporation 

264.265 

Tall  Tree  Systems  . . 

,  .  .  274 

Mentor  .  . .  .... 

.  .  272 

Tayco  Business  Forms  ........ 

...114 

Microcomputer  Accessories  . 

.  ~  48 

TG  Products  . 

.  . .  209 

Micro  Design  Intel  national 

. ,  .  .  151 

ThinkTank  . . . . . 

, , .  ,  95 

Microlog  . . . 

3M  Company . 

. . . 183 

"1 

Transtar  . . . . . 

76,111 

Microsoft  . 71,135,249 

Virtual  Combinatics . . 

. .  .  204 

Micro-tax  . ,  ♦ . 

. .  241 

XOR  Corporation . 

.  ...  44 

for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


3 


Softalk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer 


Editor 

Managing  Editor 
Art  Director 
Assisfanf  Art  Director 
Associate  Editors 


News  Editor 
Nrwsptak  Editor 
Editor-at^Large 
Copy  Editor 
Editorial  Coordinator 
Editorial  Assistant 
Proofreaders 
Guest  Reviewer 
Contributing  Editors 
Assembly  Language 
Basic 

Financial  Modeling 

Hardware 

Investing 

Pascal 

Printers 

Questions  and  Answers 
Sj^ecieif  Assup  irricnts 
Systems  Software 
Wo  rd  Process  irrg 

Art  Production 


Craig  Stinson 
Michael  Tighe 
Kevin  McKeon 
Tim  Durr 
James  Bradbury, 

Kevin  Goldstein, 

Kathy  Talley’Jones 

Michael  Ferris 

David  Hunter 

Jean  Varven 

Cordell  Cooper 

Betsy  Barnes 

Marlene  Lunnon 

Harry  McNeil,  Judith  Pfeffer 

Philip  Good 

Ray  Duncan 
Joe  Juhasz 
Jack  Grushcow 
Steve  Schmitt 
Ken  Landis 

Bruce  Webster,  Detrdre  Wendt 
John  Dickinson 
Nancy  Andrews 
John  Socha 
Alan  Boyd 

Terry  Tinsley  Datz  and 
R  Lloyd  Datz 
Don  Robertson 


Ad  Production 

Michael  G.  Pender 

Art  Assistants 

Softalk  Publishing  Inc. 

Lucas  McClure,  Nancy  Baldwin, 
Gkrtn  Thorne,  Dan  Winkler, 
Weldon  O.  Lewin, 

Malcolm  Rodgers,  Ruth  Seid 

Chairman 

John  Haller 

Publisher 

A1  Tcmnmcrvik 

Editor-m-Chief 

Margot  Comstock  Tommervik 

Senior  Art  Director 

Kurt  Wahher 

Associate  Publisher 

Mary  Sue  Runnel  Is 

Director  of  Operations 

Three  Tyler 

Accounting 

Evelyn  Burke 

Accounting  Assistants 

Circulation 

Mary  Jo  Milam,  Carla  Swanson, 
Lois  Mencsik,  Donna  Flushman 

Trial  Subscriptions 

Marsha  Stewart,  Deirdre  Booth, 
Cliff  Martinez.  Anna  Gusland 

Paid  Subscriptions 

Michelle  Vigneault- 
Kirschenbaum,  Leticia  Garcia, 
David  Kahn,  Jan  Aguiar, 
Barbara  Naimoti 

Dealer  Sales 

Paltie  Lesser,  Dan  Yoder 

Back  Issues 

Michad  Jones 

Systems 

John  Heilman  n 

Advertising  Coordinator 

Linda  McGuire  Carter 

Assistant 

Cathy  Stewart 

Advertising  Services 

Marcia  Shepard 

Hartley  G,  Lesser 

Roe  Adams  III 

Regional  Editors 

West  Coast  Sales 

Mike  Antkh 

Softalk 

7250  Laurel  Canyon  Blvd. 

North  Hollywood 

CA  91605 
(213}  9BG-5074 

East  Coast  Safes 

Ian  Ross 

Paul  McGinnis 

Advertising  Sales 

690  Broadway 

Massapqqua,  NY  11756 
(212)  490-1021 

Midwest  and 

Ted  Rickard 

Rocky  Mountain 

John  Bollweg 

Sales 

John  Ssenkiewicz 

Kevin  Sullivan 

Mprket/Media  Associates 

435  Locust  Road 

Wilmette,  IL  60091 
(312)  251*254) 

Composition  by  Type  Works,  Pasadena,  California.  Printing 
by  Volkmuth  Printers,  Sainl  Cloud,  Minnesota. 

IBM  and  Personal  Computer  are  trademarks  of  international 
Business  Machines,  Armonk,  New  York.  Compaq  is  a  trademark 
of  Compaq  Computer  Corpora hon,  Houston,  Texas, 

Softalk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer.  Volume  2,  Number  7. 
Copyright  ©  1983  by  Softalk  Publishing  Inc.  All  rights  reserved. 
ISSN:  0733-2173.  Softalk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  is 
published  monthly  by  Softalk  Publishing  Inc.,  7250  Laurel 
Canyon  Blvd.,  North  Hollywood,  CA  91605;  telephone  (213} 
980-5074.  Second-class  postage  paid  at  North  Hollywood, 
California,  and  additional  mailing  offices. 

Postmaster:  Send  address  changes  to  Softalk /IBM,  Box  60, 
North  Hollywood,  CA  91603- 

Subsmptions;  Complimentary  trial  subscription  to  all 
owners  of  IBM  Personal  Computers  or  Compaq  computers  in  the 
USA,  If  you  own  a  pc  or  a  Compaq  but  aren't  receiving  Softalk  for 
the  IBM  Personal  Computer,  send  your  serial  number  and  mailing 
address  lo  SoFtalk/IBM  Circulation,  Bov  60,  North  Hollywood, 
CA  91603.  Non-pc-owner  subscriptions:  $24  per  year.  Please 
allow  siv  to  eight  weeks  for  processing.  Softalk  for  the  IBM  Per¬ 
sonal  Computer  is  to! ally  independent  of  International  Business 
Machines. 

Back  issues  (from  June  1982);  $3, 

Problems?  if  you  haven't  received  your  Softalk  by  the 
fifteenth  of  the  month,  or  if  you  have  other  problems  with 
^our  subscription,  Marsha  Stewart  can  help  you  out.  Call  (213) 

Moving?  Send  new  address  and  a  recent  mailing  label  from 
your  old  address  to  SoftalkdBM  Circulation,  Bos  60,  North  Hol¬ 
lywood,  CA  91603;  telephone  (2)3)  960-5(174  Please  allow  six 
to  eight  weeks  for  processing. 


*  -O  H  T  *'  *  T 

This  month's  contest  is  simple.  Send  us  your  list  of  sixteen  things  you  can  do 
with  a  dead  computer.  Best  overall  list  wins  $100  in  software.  Funniest  single  item 
gets  $50.  No  warmed-over  cat  jokes,  please. 

Send  your  entry— along  with  your  name,  address,  phone,  name  of  nearest  dealer, 
and  what  of  our  advertisers'  wares  you  want  if  you  win— to  Hello  Kitty,  Softalk/ 
IBM,  Box  60,  North  Hollywood,  CA  91603.  Deadline  is  January  15,  19B4. 

W  $  ##  ##  0  A?  4 

Winners  of  the  last  three  contests  will  have  extra  stuffings  for  their  stockings. 
Sixteen-year-old  David  Ting  (Colesviile,  MD),  creator  of  the  fictitious  B3-DOS  112.1, 
has  $100  worth  of  goodies  coming  to  him.  His  prize  package  was  our  top  choice  in  the  July 
des  ign-a-s  of  t  wa  re  -  package  conte  st . 

The  winner  of  September's  "world's  most  challenging"  crossword  puzzle  is  Rosemary 
Szyplik  (Ontario,  CA).  She  also  gets  one  hundred  big  ones.  (More  winners  on  page  9.) 


MicroHard:  "We  do  software  the  Hard  way/ 


New  box 


BAS1CAAA 


New  file 


bytes  format 


Say  good-bye  to  those  archaic 

days  of  throwing  away  560  every 
six  months  for  the  newest  version 
of  DOS,  Just  to  have  to  buy  another  version 
six  months  later.  Now  you  can  own 
Version  112.1  before  IBM  has  even  decided 
whal  to  call  its  next  DOS.  Just  took  over 
some  of  the  features  of  BS-DOS,  If  you're 
worried  that  your  machine  cannot  handle 
this  animal,  you're  right.  BS-DOS  is  years 
ahead  of  yqur  IBM,  so  we've  packed  it 
in  a  box  suitable  to  put  in  your  freezer  to 
save  until  you  are  ready.  We  even 
camouflaged  it  so  your  spouse  won't 
notice, 

Jf  the  price  of  DOS  keeps  rising  at 
the  rate  it's  going  now,  you  could 
be  saving  a  bundEe  for  the  future. . . 
as  long  as  you  don't  eat  your  investment. 


4 


softalk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  19 S3 


Incredible  Trainers! 


No  matter  what  level  IBM  Personal 
Computer  training  you  want,  our  inter¬ 
active  tutorial  software  gives  you  the 
answers.  Easier,  faster*  smarter. 

Take  The  INSTRUCTOR*  for 
first-time  users.  PC  Magazine  called  it, 
“The  best ,  ,  *  introduction  to 
the  PC  around,”  It's  #1  because  it 
takes  the  work  out  of  learning  initial 
PC  operations. 

And  Now!  Brand  New!  Setting  a 
new  standard  for  interactive  training, 
we  give  you  .  -  . 

PROFESSOR  DOS, 

You've  got  to  see  (and  hear)  it  to 
believe  itl  Designed  for  PC  users 
ready  to  learn  higher  level  PC 
concepts,  including  DOS  commands. 


Professor  DOS  will  challenge  you, 
amuse  you,  and  amaze  you. 

Both  programs  use  vivid  graphic 
images,  creative  animation,  sound  and 
living  color  to  take  you  from  mystery 
to  mastery  of  your  IBM  PC.  Each  is 
totally  self-paced.  And  they're 
“people- literate."  So  you  really 
do  learn. 

The  most  sought-after  computer- 

individual 

|  SOFTWARE  HNJpQElPQtlA-rED  J 

24  Spinnaker  Place 
Redwood  City,  CA  94065 
(415)  591-4166 


assisted  training  anywhere.  Available 
at  IBM  PC  dealers  and  software 
retailers  everywhere,  separately  or  in  a 
tutorial  set.  Affordable  at  a  suggested 
list  price  of  ONLY  .  ,  , 

$44.95  -  The  INSTRUCTOR 
$59.95  —  Professor  DOS 
or 

$94.95  —  Tutorial  Set 

We've  made  The  INSTRUCTOR 
and  Professor  DOS  so  realistic,  you'll 
agree  .  ,  .  THEY’RE  INCREDIBLE! 

Requires  MS-DOS »  any  IBM  Personal  Computer  or 
Compaq  Personal  Computer  with  at  least  one 
diskette  drive  and  a  monochrome  or  color  display. 
Phone  and  dealer  inquiries  welcome. 


Number  One  Add-  On  Products 
for  IBM  PC 


Getting  the  most 
out  of  your 
personal  computer. 


AST  Research  Number  One  Add-On  Prod¬ 
ucts  let  you  realize  the  full  potential  of  your 
IBM  PC  or  PC-XT  without  wasting  valuable 
slot  space.  You  can  take  advantage  of  more 
of  the  capabilities  IBM  designed  into  the  PC 
while  leaving  space  for  future  enhancements 
as  they  are  introduced,  by  combining  your 
memory  and  input/ouput  requirements  on  a 


SixPakPlus' 


ComboPlus 


Serial  {async)  port—. 
Game  adapter  port  (optional)—. 
Parallel  printer  port-i 


Serial  (async)  port 


Parallel  printer  port 

Clock  calendar  with - . 

battery  backup  ’ 


Clock  calendar  with 
battery  backup 


64K-256K  of  parity  checked  memory 


64K-384K  of  parity  checked  memory.  Added  to  a 
PC  or  XT  with  a  fully  populated  256K  system  board, 
the  SixPakPlus  can  bring  the  system  memory  to 
640  Kr  the  maximum  addressable  user  memory. 


MP  Expansion  Memory; 


Two  serial  (async)  ports 
Optional — ,  Standard 


64K-256K  of  parity-1 
checked  memory 


AST-PCnet 


Parallel  printer  port  (optional) 

Clock  calendar  with 
battery  backup 

Game  adapter  port  (optional) 


CSMA/CD  1  Mbps  baseband  Local  Area 
Network 

Uses  standard  75-ohm  CATV  coaxial  cable 
capable  of  running  up  to  7,000  feet 
Interconnects  multiple  PC's  (57,000 
addressable  limit) 

All  PC-compatible  disk  drives  and  printers  are 
shareable 

Networked  access  to  mainframes  via  shared 
AST-3780 

Users  can  execute  commands  remotely  on 
shared  PC 
File  lock-out 

DOS  1.1  and  DOS  2.0  compatible 


MegaPlus  II 


Two  serial  (async)  ports 

Optional - ■  Standard 

Parallel  printer 
port  (optional) 


Game  adapter  port 
(optional) 

►  Clock  calendar  with 
battery  backup 

64K-512K  of  parity  checked  memory.  The  basic 
card  expands  to  256  K,  and  with  the  MegaPaK 
extension  expands  to  an  additional  l28Kor256K 
of  parity  checked  memory. 


Ask  for  AST  Research  Number  One  Add-On 
Products,  available  at  Compute rland,  Entre, 
Businessland  and  other  computer  stores 
worldwide.  For  the  dealer  nearest  you,  or  for 
complete  product  information  contact  AST 
Research,  Inc.,  (714)  540-1333/863-1333 
TELEX  295370 ASTR  UR 


SixPakPlus 


User  Memory  from  64K-512K  —  When 
added  to  your  existing  system  memory,  brings 
your  PC  up  to  its  maxim  urn  of  640  K,  You  can 
run  larger  spreadsheets  or  create  larger  in¬ 
memory  databases.  You  can  also  use  the 
additional  memory  along  with  the  supplied 
AST  SuperPak,v  software  which  Includes 
SuperDrive“  and  SuperSpooP, 

Serial  Ports  —  Using  a  modem  your  PC  can 
communicate  with  other  computers  over 
telephone  lines.  By  connecting  a  serial  printer, 
you  can  obtain  high  quality  print  output. 
Other  serial  devices  such  as  a  plotter  or 
mouse  may  also  be  connected  to  a  serial 
port. 


Parallel  Ports  —  Used  for  connecting  a 
parallel  printer  to  your  PC  for  high-speed, 
draft  quality  printouts. 

Clock  Calendar  —  With  the  on-board  bat¬ 
tery,  the  clock-calendar  feature  automati¬ 
cally  maintains  the  correct  date  and  time, 
even  when  the  PC  is  turned  off. 

Game  Adapter  —  Allows  you  to  connect  an 
IBM- type  joystick  to  your  PC  so  you  can  ptay 
the  multitude  of  arcade  quality  games.  Or 
you  can  use  the  joystick  input  for  other 
applications  by  writing  your  own  programs. 

Other  Communications  Products  —  AST 

Research  also  extends  the  capabilities  of 


your  IBM  PC  with  mainframe  communication 
products  including  3270  SNA  and  5251  ter¬ 
minal  emulation*  3760  RJE  support,  and 
AST-PCner  —  the  Local  Area  Network  de¬ 
signed  for  the  IBM  PC. 

/IS T  Quality 

All  AST  Research  enhancement  products 
come  with  the  UST'Ptus"  —  our  unsurpassed 
reputation  for  quality,  reliability,  after- the- 
sale  support,  and  overall  design  excellence 
—  which  give  our  products  the  best  price/ 
performance  ratio  in  the  industry! 

PC  net  is  a  registered  trademark  of  Orchid  Technologyjnc, 


ision  Memory 


SOFTA1.K  CLASSIFIED  ADVERTISIM , 


A 1 1  veil  I  ii  re 


MAP  OF  COLOSSAL  CAVE 

For  IBM-PC  and  other  versions  of  "ORIGINAL"* 
ADVENTURE  GAME.  A  detailed  map  of  the  CO¬ 
LOSSAL  CAVE  including  travel  instructions,  trea¬ 
sure  locations  and  magic  words — $6  postpaid. 
feLUEJACKET  SOFTWARE,  Dept.  ST,  Box  13547, 
St.  Petersburg,  FL  33733. 


B  ii  >  i  n  e  s  s 


OPTIONS-80:  STOCK  OPTION 

ANALYZER  is  investor's  tool.  Puts,  Calls, 
Spreads,  in  and  out.  Graphs,  tables,  print.  Disk 
store.  Free  brochure.  $125.  OPTIONS-80,  Box 
471-B,  Concord,  MA  01742. 

STATISTICAL  SYSTEM 

Announcing  the  NUMBER  CRUNCHER  Statistical 
System.  Integrated  database  and  most  statistical 
procedures.  $199.  Contact  Dr.  Jerry  L.  Hintze,  865 
E.  400  North,  Kaysvffle,  UT  84037;  (801)  5460445. 

1040PLAN  A  TAX  PLANNING 
TEMPLATE  FOR  1-2-3 

Includes  tax  changes  for  1983  and  new  Alternative 
Min  Tax.  Flexible,  up  to  four  different  alternatives 
can  be  computed  at  once,  but  easy  to  use.  Follows 
IRS  forms,  includes:  1040  schedules,  A,B,C, 
D,E,G,W,SE  &  forms  2119,  2441,  3468,  &  6251. 
An  update,  if  needed,  sold  at  cost  to  registered 
owners  in  Jan.  Req.  256K.  $45.  William  A.  Permar 
CPA,  1125  Sunnyhills Rd.,  Dept.  ST,  Oakland,  CA 
94610. 


G  rn  i’li  i  i  > 


COMMODITY  TRADERS 

Our  commodities  graphics  program  displays  and 
prints  prices,  moving  averages  and  the  RSI.  A 
monochrome  display,  128K  and  a  dot  matrix  or 
daisy  wheel  printer  is  required,  $50.  Sage  Systems, 
Rt.  1  Box  96A,  Lovelock,  NV  89419. 

PC-TITLE/PC-PROJECTOR 

Create  full  color,  professional  quality  text  for 
slides,  screen  displays,  flyers.  Produce  manual  or 
time-controlled  "slide  shows"  using  the  IBM  PC  as 
an  electronic  slide  projector.  Add  full  graphics  with 
PCcrayon.  PC-Title/Projector  $49.95.  PCcrayon 
$44.95.  Mention  this  ad  and  get  all  3  programs  for 
$79.90.  V1SA/MC.  PC  Resources,  Inc.  (408)  243- 
4169. 

"COMPUTER  ART"  POSTERS 

Use  your  IBM  PC  to  print  striking  "computer  art" 
posters  up  to  2'  x  3'  in  size.  Choose  from  over  20 
subjects  including  the  Mona  Lisa,  Venus  DeMilo, 
Einstein,  pets,  and  more.  Requires  DOS  and  any 
IBM/EPSON  Compatible  Printer.  For  a  complete 
package,  which  includes  3  diskettes,  send  $28  to: 
BUDGE  &  CO.,  7926  Willowcrest  Road,  Salt  Lake 
City,  UT  84121. 

PCART  DISK  and  BOOK 

Interested  in  using  your  PC  for  a  nonfigurative 
geometric  artistic  experience?  Req.  Color  Bd.  & 
Mon.  Try  one  of  many  by  noted  sculptor  &  educa¬ 
tor  Leroy  Lamis.  $50. 

10  screen  1:  key  off:  els:  color  4,1 
20  for  X  =  5  to  100 
30  circle  (160,100),215,md*2  +  l,„5/X 
40  circle  (160,100),215,md*2  +  l,„X,5:next 
PC  ART,  3101  Oak  St.,  Terre  Haute,  IN  47803. 


Hard wa  re 


VERBATIM  DISKS 

5 1/4"  SSDD  $218  /100,  MX-80  Cartridge  $5,  FLIP 
'N'  FILE  (75  capacity)  $18.95,  GEMINI  10X 
PRINTER  $310.  Dealer  inquiries  invited.  Free  Bro¬ 
chure.  UNIK  Associates,  12545  W.  Burleigh, 
Brookfield,  WI  53005;  (414)  782-5030. 


CLASSY  PRINTER  COVERS 

Tailored  cloth,  not  plastic.  Fits  Epson,  NEC,  Ap¬ 
ple,  Smith-Corona,  and  all  similar-sized  printers. 
Specify  tan  duck  with  navy  trim,  blue  denim  with 
white,  or  chestnut  suedecloth  with  chocolate  trim. 
$12.50  includes  first-class  mail  delivery.  Money- 
back  guarantee.  Discovery  Center,  Box  289,  Ro¬ 
selle,  1L  60172. 


3M  SCOTCH  DISKETTES  $20.95 

Authorized  3M  distributor.  Buy  wholesale.  5.25" 
SS/DD  $20.95.  DS/DD  $29.95.  Reinforced  hub. 
Complete  price  list  available.  Call  (415)  778-2595 
or  write  Argonaut  Distributing,  1104  Buchanan 
Rd.  STI,  Antioch,.  CA  94509.  Prompt  delivery! 


/  /  0  111  (’ 


THE  ULTIMATE  HANGMAN 

Hangman  for  the  Superintelligent  entertains  you 
while  challenging  your  knowledge  of  esoteric  vo¬ 
cabulary  and  famous  sayings  (from  Sophocles  to 
Mae  West).  The  computer  provides  brief  clues,  but 
it's  still  your  job  to  avoid  the  hangmanl  Over  1,000 
words  and  phrases.  $15.  PC  DOS,  64K  80-column 
display,  1  dd.  NORLAND  SOFTWARE,  1014A  W. 
Badger  Rd.,  Madison,  WI  53713. 

HI-RES  CARD  GAMES  FOR  IBM 

Three  Hi-Res  color  games  for  IBM  PC:  Draw 
Poker,  Blackjack ,  Keno,  Gambling  Games  I,  only 
$35  plus  $2  shipping.  Anthro-Digital,  Inc.,  Box 
1385,  Pittsfield,  MA  01202.  (413)  448-8278. 


/  1 o  me  /I  rca dc 


2  FOR  THE  PRICE  OF  III 

Get  2  great  games  for  the  price  of  one.  WORD 
PROBE  is  a  stimulating  word  game  where  players 
compete  *-o  uncover  the  letters  of  hidden  words. 
MONSTER  MATCH  is  a  challenging  memory 
game  in  which  players  open  doors  to  match  pic¬ 
tures.  But  watch  out  for  the  monstersl  Both  for 
only  $19,951  (Req.  PC-DOS,  64K,  Color  Adapter, 
&  1  disk  drive.)  GEMINI  SOFTWARE,  1336  Ash, 
Waukegan,  1L  60085. 

LJFFDA  CHALLENGE  GAME 

Fun  and  challenging  for  the  entire  family.  One  to 
four  players.  Send  $10  plus  .50  for  1st  class  postage 
to:  "LILBIL  creations,"  Box  37073,  Bloomington, 
MN  55431-0073;  (612)  941-8392.  Satisfaction  guar¬ 
anteed. 


Ph  I’liea  I  ions 


FREE  FREE  FREE 

BASIC  AIDS  2.0  FACT  SHEETS  and  our  guide 
"MAKE  YOUR  PC  PROFITABLE"  are  sent  free  to 
persons  who  request  them.  This  new  release  of  BA¬ 
SIC  AIDS  is  the  most  powerful  program  DEVEL¬ 
OPMENT/DOCUMENTATION  tool  available! 
Tulsa  Computer  Consortium,  Box  707,  Owasso, 
OK  74055  or  call  (918)  747-0151. 


> e  rail  e > 


SOFTWARE  JUNKIE? 

RENT  today's  most  popular  recreational  and  edu¬ 
cational  computer  software  for  your  IBM  personal 
computer.  LOW  prices.  FREE  brochure.  The  Soft 
Source-R  Inc.,  Dept.  K,  Box  2931,  Joliet,  IL  60434. 


5  /  rn  I  i\\y  a 


PC-CHESS  V2.1  $34.95 

The  professional  chess  program  for  any  IBM  PC 
with  64K.  Attractive  graphics  board  display  and 
game  status  including  move  and  tournament  time. 
Computer  plays  at  10  levels  and  human  moves  are 
cursor-controlled.  Special  features:  take  back 
moves,  save  games  as  DOS  files,  setup  a  special 
board  situation,  print  list  of  moves,  and  replay  any 
or  all  of  game.  Send  order  to: 

COURTRIN  ENTERPRISES  (619)  569-8308 
Box  231190  San  Diego,  CA  92123 


LI  I  i  I  i  1 1/ 


EXPAND  PROWRITER  I-II 
(NEC  8023) 

*  PRINT —  SCREEN— an  assembly  language 
screen  dump  for  text  and  graphics  displays.  $35. 

*  PRINT  -CHARACTERS— an  assembly  lan¬ 
guage  program  that  allows  the  user  to  print  any 
character  but  printer  control  codes.  $35. 

*  Prices  include  an  extensive  manual  (with  source 
code)  plus  shipping.  Programming  is  not  copy  pro¬ 
tected.  SOFT  &  FRIENDLY,  R  2,  Box  65,  Solsberry, 
IN  47459;  (812)  825-7384. 

END  PRINTER  FRUSTRATION 

Get  in  control  of  your  IBM  PC  Printer 
SurePrint 
For  a  Perfect  Print 

A  simple  program  for  complicated  printers. 

*  Completely  Menu-Driven 

*  Easy-to-Use  Outputs 

*  Excellent  Documentation.  SurePrint  provides 
printer  option  control  for  any  PC  application, 
from  PC-DOS,  BASIC,  and  directly  on-line.  Code 
displays  included.  Available  for  IBM,  Epson,  Oki- 
data,  IDS,  C.  Itoh,  NEC,  Anadex,  TI,  Diablo, 
Daisywriter  and  other  printer  models.  Only  $35 
with  one  printer  (please  specify  make  and  model). 
$15  for  each  additional  printer.  (NYS  residents  add 
71/4%  sales  tax.) 

Dickinson  Associates  Inc. 

Box  1358,  Melville,  NY  11747 


SR-LIB  LIBRARY  MANAGER 

SR-LIB  creates  and  modifies  library  files  compati¬ 
ble  with  the  IBM  PC-DOS  linker.  Libraries  allow 
fast  linking  and  automatic  search.  $29.95  from 
Software  Research,  Box  10004,  Austin,  TXJ78766. 


THE  PRINTER  MASTER 

Simplify  your  life  with  this  time-saving  program, 
which  offers  printer  mode  selection  from  a  menu 
and  control  of  paper  alignment/top  of  form. 
Works  with  every  printer  in  your  system.  Program 
ready  to  control  an  IBM,  Epson,  Okidata,  C.Itoh, 
or  IDS  Prism  printer;  you  can  customize  for  any 
printer  or  printer  function,  or  we  will  do  it  for  you 
for  an  additional  fee.  To  order,  send  $35  plus  $2 
shipping  to:  Trilogy  Systems,  Inc.,  Box  94006,  Des 
Moines,  LA  50394. 


8 


soltcilk 


BASIC  DEVELOPMENT  SYSTEM 

BD5  is  a  set  of  BASIC  language  programming  tools 
co-resident  with  the  interpreter  so  that  all  Functions 
are  immediately  available  within  the  BASIC  envi¬ 
ronment.  Includes  Scrolling  Keys,  Single  Step 
Trace,  Cross-Reference,  Variable  Dump,  Super  RE- 
NUM,  and  utilities  for  program  Compression  and 
Uncompression.  579  plus  S3  5&H,  Visa/MC  ac¬ 
cepted.  SofTool  Systems,  89772  E.  Hampden  Ave., 
£179,  Denver,  CO  80231;  {303}  793-0145 


PCALCULATOR 

—Turn  Your  PC  Into  a  Calculator  With  Memory  — 
A  stand-alone  program  or  merge  it  into  BASIC 
programs.  May  be  invoked  from  function  keys  and 
has  machine  code  screen  save  feature.  Use  with  any 
80  column  display.  Send  529,95  to:  Lorral  Associ¬ 
ates,  Box  562,  Apalachin,  NY  13732. 


THE  PROWRITER  UTILITIES 

'Tpson-Si  inula  tor"  makes  your  printer  fully  IBM 
software  compatible  without  sacrificing  perform¬ 
ance,  Enjoy  full  use  of  programs  like  1-2-3.  In¬ 
cluded  is  ProSc  to  print  the  full  IBM  character  set 
plushi-res  graphics.  Menu-driven  setup  of  alt  func¬ 
tions  with  Proset.  Also  compatible  with  the  NEC 
8023 A  printer  3  in  1 .  A  joy  to  use  at  534.95,  CA  res 
+  6%. 

COURTRIN  ENTERPRISES  (619)  569-8308 
Box  231190  San  Diego,  CA  92123 


1  V'[»  ftl  Pro  lCj*  >  i  i/y 


DILLOWRITER 

Easy  to  use  full-screen  editor /formatter  for  the 
IBM  PC.  Top,  bottom,  find,  margins,  centering, 
pagination,  headers,  footers,  block  operations,  etc. 
$29.95,  Software  Research,  Box  10004,  Austin,  TX 
78766 


Softalk/ IBM's  classified  advertising  section  offers  a 
considerably  less  expensive  way  than  display  ad¬ 
vertising  to  reach  tens  of  thousands  of  IBM  Per¬ 
sonal  Computer  owners. 

Classified  advertising  space  is  available  at  the 
rate  of  $10  per  line  for  the  first  ten  lines,  with  a  five- 
line  minimum.  Each  line  over  ten  lines  is  525  per 
line.  Ad  copy  should  be  received  no  later  than  the 
10th  of  the  second  month  prior  to  the  cover  date  of 
the  issue  in  which  you  want  the  ad  to  appear.  Pay¬ 
ment  must  accompany  ad  copy. 

The  publisher  reserves  the  right  to  reject  any 
advertising  that  he  feels  is  not  in  keeping  with  the 
publication's  standards. 

Heads  will  be  set  in  10-point  boldface,  all  capi¬ 
tals  only.  Italics  are  available  for  body  text  only; 
please  underline  the  portions  you  would  like  itali¬ 
cized  , 

The  body  text  of  the  ad  will  hold  roughly  45 
characters  per  line.  Spaces  between  words  are 
counted  as  one  character.  Heads  will  hold  roughly 
24  characters  per  line,  with  spaces  between  words 
counted  as  one  character.  Please  indicate  whether 
you  would  like  the  head  centered  or  run  into  the 
text. 

Please  write  or  call  for  additional  information. 

Softalk/IBM  Classified  Advertising 
Box  60 

North  Hollywood,  California  91603 
Attention:  Linda  McGuire  Carter 
213-980-5074 


The  August  one -line-pro gram  contest  al¬ 
most  put  us  under.  We  got  so  many  entries  we 
decided  to  categorize  them  in  order  to  choose  □ 
winner.  We  selected  the  best  program  in  each 
of  four  categories  (graphics,  humor,  games, 
and  "serious"),  and  then  picked  the  grand  prize 
winner  from  these  four. 

In  the  graphics  category,  we  saw  a  lot  of 
dazzling  abstracts.  The  most  hypnotic  one- 
liner  came  from  Dr.  Charles  Gaston,  of 
Poughkeepsie,  NY: 

1  SCREEN  1,0:KEY 

OFF:CLS:RANDOMIZE;CL5:2 =37:  WHILE 
Z;C  =  INT(RND*4):FOR  1-1  TO  6:SOUND 
200 + 4ND  *  1000,9:LINE- 
(RND*319,RND*199LC:SOUND 
Z,0:NEXT:Q=fQ+5  +  Z*RND)  MOD 
Z :  SOUND  Z  +  Q,  200:  PAINT 
{RND*3I9,RND*199),iNT{RND*4), 
OSOUND  Z,0:]=J4RND/Z:COLOR, 

]  MOD  2: WEND:  END 

The  entry  we  liked  in  the  humor  category 
came  from  Richard  Waikel  (Fort  Wayne,  IN), 
If  you  know  your  ASCII,  the  listing  explains 
itself: 

1  CLSTOR  X  =  1  TO  184: PRINT  "  Our  Data 
";:NEXTX:FORX  =  lTO 
1838:Y  =  1  +  INT(X/80):LOCATE  Y,(X  MOD 
m  + 1:  PRINT  "  "  +  CHR${2);:  LOCATE 
Y, SO:  PRINT  "  "-WHILE 
VAL(MlDS(TlMESy8,l))  =  0:  WEND:  NEXT 
X-LOCATE  12,16:PRINT  "A  little  round 
yellow  man  just  ate  ALL  Our  Data!" 

We  got  a  lot  of  games,  including  a  three- 
part  role-playing  game  in  three  lines.  A  find- 
the-ship-in-the-grid  opus  from  Andrew  Marc 
Greene  (Jamaica  Estates,  NY)  was  chosen  win¬ 
ner: 

0  RANDOMIZER  =  INT(RND*21):E=INT 
(RND*  21):  WHILE  (N<  >G  ORE<>H)  AND 
N>-1  AND  N(21  AND  E>-1  AND 
E<21:N  =  N-INT(RND*3-1)*(N<)G):E  =  E- 
INTfRND  *3-1 )  *  { E  O  H)  :INPUT  G  ,H :  PRINT 
MID5("N  S"JSGN(G-N)  -h2,l)MIDS(^E 
WTSGN(H-E)  -H2,1):WEND:PRINT 
MID$("lW^{N=GME=HRl,l) 

Here  are  Greene's  instructions: 

An  enemy  ship  is  hiding  in  a  20-by-20  area , 
Your  mission  is  to  find  and  destroy  that  ship 
before  it  escapes *  The  north-south  and  east- 
west  axes  are  numbered  from  0  to  20  north¬ 
ward  and  eastward;  the  0,0  coordinate  is  in  the 
lower  left  corner  of  the  grid. 

On  each  turn,  you  shoot  a  location  given 
by  north  and  east  coordinates .  The  computer 
calculates  damage  to  the  enemy  ship ,  accord¬ 
ing  to  the  following  table : 


North 

East 

Damage 

Wrong 

Wrong 

None 

Wrong 

Right 

5hip  can  move  only 
north/south  on  next 
turn. 

Right 

Wrong 

Ship  can  move  only 
east/west  on  next 

turn , 

Right 

Right 

Ship  is  destroyed; 
you  win. 

After  each  shot  you  get  a  short  intelligence 
report  telling  you  the  position  of  the  enemy 
relative  to  your  shot.  Then  the  enemy  ship  ei¬ 
ther  moves  in  one  of  the  eight  basic  direc- 
tions-N,  NW,  H  SW,  5,  5E ,  E,  andNE^orit 
stands  still  After  it  moves ,  you  get  another 
chance  to  shoot. 

If  the  enemy  sneaks  out  of  the  area ,  you 
lose.  The  computer  will  add  an  L  to  its  intelli¬ 
gence  report ,  informing  you  of  your  demo¬ 
tion.  If  you  blow  up  the  ship ,  the  computer 
skips  a  line  and  says  W,  Basics  prompt  means 
the  game  is  over. 

In  the  serious  vein,  Dave  Parker  (Saratoga, 
CA)  submitted  an  JJhonest-to-goodness,  full- 
function"  word  processor: 

1  JS  =  SPACE$f40):DEF 
SEG  =  &H  B000FRINT  STRINGS  - 
N  =  0),12):N  =  1:LINE  INPUT  MS: IF 
MS  =  "save"  THEN  INPUT  "Name 
-";F$:LOCATE  CSR LIN-2:  PRINT  jS:  PRINT 
J$:BSAVE  FS  +  ",  WF",  0,  &H1000RUN  ELSE 
IF  MS  — "load"  THEN  INPUT  "Name 
-;FS:BLOAD  FS  +  ".WP",0:GOTO  1  ELSE  1 

Parkers  instructions: 

As  is,  the  program  works  with  the  graphics 
adapter  Change  &hb800  to  &hb000  for  mono¬ 
chrome, 

In  Basic ,  in  eighty-column  text  mode ,  pref¬ 
erably  with  the  key  display  off ,  type  run  to 
start.  To  create  a  new  file ,  simply  start  typing 
and  editing  on  the  blank  screen.  To  save  your 
text ,  get  to  the  beginning  ofet  new  line  and  type 
save  (no  capital  letters),  The  computer  will 
prompt  for  a  filename.  Enter  an  eight-charac¬ 
ter  root  name;  an  extension  of  ,WP  will  be 
added,  the  file  will  be  saved ,  and  the  program 
will  restart.  To  load  an  old  file  made  by  this 
program ,  type  load  on  a  new  line  and  enter  the 
files  root  name  at  the  prompt.  To  print  a  file , 
press  shift-printscreen  with  the  text  on-screen 

And  the  Winner  Is.  ,  , 

In  the  judges  humble  opinions,  the  big  $100 
winner  is  Dr.  Gaston,  for  his  angular  abstract. 

Congratulations  to  David,  Charles,  and 
Rosemary:  our  thanks  to  the  one-liner  run¬ 
ners-up  and  all  the  other  one-line  program¬ 
mers  .  A 


for  the  IBM.  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


9 


Tommy*  bas 

In  the  October  1983  "Crosstalk"  there  was  a 
description  of  the  program  Tommy,  bas,  For 
some  reason  I  was  not  able  to  find  the  part  of 
the  program  that  came  after  line  ]40,  Would 
you  please  send  me  a  copy  of  the  entire  listing? 

Rons  Lambing,  Wilknar,  MN 
for  those  to/io  wrote  or  called  in  about  Tom¬ 
my,  bus  for  were  just  wondering  about  it)fthe 
program  is  all  there,  but  the  references  in  the 
letter  were  incorrect.  It  runs  as  printed. 

Help  for  the  Handicapped 
In  recent  months  many  magazines  devoted  to 
personal  computers  have  printed  letters  from 
handicapped  persons  struggling  with  key¬ 
boards,  Our  problem  {l  myself  am  disabled)  is 
that  we  can  only  press  one  key  at  a  time  be¬ 
cause  of  our  physical  limitations*  Any  multi¬ 
key  combination,  such  as  control-break,  is 
impossible. 

A  solution  to  this  problem  is  now  available 
to  pc  users.  RoseSoft  has  produced  a  special 
version  of  their  keyboard  enhancer,  ProKey 
which  "remembers"  the  control*  altr  and  cap 


shift  keys  until  after  the  subsequent  (nonshift) 
key  is  struck.  Thus,  any  multikey  combination 
can  be  expressed  as  a  sequential  series  of  single 
keystrokes, 

ProKey  provides  an  elegant  solution  to  a 
problem  that  has  plagued  disabled  computer 
users  for  years.  It  can  be  obtained  from  Rose- 
Soft,  Box  45808,  Seattle,  WA  98105. 

Mike  Falconer,  Madison,  WI 

A  Bigger,  Better  BSCBA5 
The  BSCBas  program  presented  in  the  Novem¬ 
ber  issue  can  be  changed  slightly  to  increase  its 
utility,  particularly  for  users  who  like  to  keep 
commonly  used  routines  as  completed  ,bas 
files  using  preassigned  targe  tine  numbers. 
These  files  are  then  merged  into  a  program  un¬ 
der  development  or  into  an  existing  program 
that  is  being  modified  but  for  which  no  ,bsc 
source  hie  exists* 

Change  line  270  of  BSCBas.bas  from 
270  UNECTR  =  ID 

to 

270  INPUT  "Starting  line  number:  "  ; 

LINECTR 


Note:  Minimum  order  20  Diskettes 
(2  Holiday  Packs), 


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Check  Gomark's  special  pricing  on 
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in 


This  is  one  more  question  (the  third)  for  the 
user  to  answer,  but  it  adds  some  utility  that  the 
published  version  did  not  have.  Incidentally,  if 
references  are  included  in  a  .bsc  source  file  to 
absolute  line  numbers,  the  BSCBas  process 
leaves  them  alone  and  does  not  treat  them  as 
names.  For  example,  gosub  60000  will  remain 
unchanged  in  the  output  .bas  tile.  This  allows 
convenient  (but  dangerous  and  hard-to-docu- 
ment)  reference  to  preprocessed  routines  that 
will  later  be  merged  into  the  run-time  .has  file. 

Mark  Gardner,  Glendale,  CA 

Port  of  Los  Angeles 

Can  readers  who  have  used  or  developed 
purchasing  software  for  the  IBM  Personal 
Computer  tell  us  about  their  experiences? 
They'd  be  giving  all  of  us  a  big  help,  especially 
first-time  pc  users.  We  wonder  what  pitfalls, 
obstacles,  and  barriers  others  have  succeeded 
in  overcoming.  We  in  the  Offices  of  the 
Purchasing  Officer  for  the  Port  of  Los  Angeles 
got  our  WordStar  to  print  only  after  having  a 
glitch  modified  so  it  would  work  on  our  partic- 
ular  printer  (the  NEC  Spinwriter  7710),  We 
also  have  dBase  IP 

J.  K.  Drummond 

Purchasing  Administrative  Assistant 

Port  of  Los  Angeles 

Beginning  Address  of  Basic's  Data  Segment 
In  the  September  1983  issue  of  Softaik  there 
was  an  answer  given  in  "Questions  and  An¬ 
swers”  describing  a  method  to  determine  the 
value  for  the  beginning  address  of  Basics  data 
segment.  A  short  machine-language  routine 
was  called  from  Basic  and  the  value  for  Basic's 
data  segment  (DS)  was  returned  via  a  variable 
labied  I  %  r 

While  this  method  will  work,  there  is  a  po¬ 
tential  pitfall  with  monochrome  monitors*  The 
memory  location  used  to  store  the  machine 
language  was  ROOO  hex.  This  is  the  screen 
buffer  location  for  monochrome  displays,  If 
the  program  described  is  run  on  a  mono¬ 
chrome  screen,  the  even  bytes  of  the  machine 
language  code  (bytes  0,  2,  4,  6,  8,  10r  12,  and 
14,  which  in  the  code  given  are  hex  values  55, 
E5r  76,  50,  D8,  04,  5D,  and  02)  will  be  written 
to  the  screen,  while  the  odd  bytes  will  attempt 
to  set  the  attribute  byte  for  each  even  location 
(two  bytes  determine  each  screen  location;  the 
first  byte  is  the  character  and  the  second  is  the 
attribute). 

The  attribute  byte  determines  whether  the 
foreground  and  background  are  black  or 
white,  blinking  or  not,  reverse  video  or  under¬ 
line,  The  characters  in  the  code  that  are  written 
will  be  undecipherable  ASCII  characters,  with 
some  characters  blinking.  The  code  will  be 
written  on  the  first  line  occupying  the  first  eight 
character  positions*  This  is  a  dangerous  place 
to  store  data  If  a  print  to  this  location  or  a 
screen  scroll  occurs  between  the  time  the  code 


SDftalk  for  flif  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


An  Industry  First  in  Word  Processing  Software: 


MfordPlus-PC  featuring  the  BOSf» , 
Word  processing  so  smart 
it  can  even  spell  300,000 words. 


Meet  the  BOSS.  WordPIus-PC's  incredible 
new  Built-in  On-line  Spelling  System. 


WORD  PROCESSING  AND  SPELLING  COMBINED: 


WordPlus-PC  featuring  the  'BOSS  ' 
is  a  whole  new  technology  in  word 
processing  software.  Finally  the  most 
powerful  word  processing  capabilities 
have  been  combined  with  a  built-in 
electronic  spelling  system  which  not 
only  checks  your  spelling  but  also 
corrects  your  spelling. 

The  "BOSS”,  an  acronym  for  Built-in 
On-line  Spelling  System,  eliminates 
embarrassing  spelling  errors  in  your 
letters  and  stops  time  consuming  trips 
to  the  dictionary. 


But  WordPlus-PC  featuring  The 
"BOSS”  will  do  far  more  than  just 
check  and  correct  your  spelling.  It  s 
been  designed  to  be  exceptionally  easy 
to  use  and  yet  contain  all  the  powerful 
features  you  expect  and  more.  Like 
built-in  mail  merge  for  personalized 
form  letters,  invoice  generation  and 
the  ability  to  merge  information  cre¬ 
ated  by  most  other  popular  programs 
such  as  l -2-3™  and  dBASE  11T  And  if 
you  have  a  question,  just  press  the 
HELP  key  to  get  back  on  track. 


You  can  also  print  bar  graphs  and 
other  charts,*  *  easi  ly  move  columns, 
scroll  horizontally  execute  global 
search  and  replace,  boilerplate  text 
and  even  print  proportionally  spaced 
on  selected  printers.  And  WordPlus-PC 
is  compatible  with  virtually  all  popular 
letter-quality  and  dot  matrix  printers. 

'With  90,000  4-  word  standard  dictionary 
and  ability  for  a  user  to  add  over  10,000 
'  custom  '  words. 


HERE’S  HOW  THE  BOSS  WORKS  FOR  YOU: 


IT  CHECKS 


At  the  touch  of  a  button,  virtually  any¬ 
time  during  typing  or  after  the  creation  of 
a  document  The  "BOSS”  locates  and 
highlights  misspelled  words  on  your 
screen.  The  "BOSS”  can  even  check  the 
spelling  of  a  word  directly  after  it's  been 
typed  in. 


IT  SUGGESTS 


Thattfc  gnu  Far  un 

ar  i  uteres 
P  1,1^— Pf  c 

tt  in  tfardPli 

ns-PC  Fe 

dtfoiitjp  fur  Word 

r  Un-  rv  s| 

Mufrr  other  word 

protestor 

iuloitaUcelly  cd 

ncn  mmvm  a 

erects  *n 
nd  »l$  fr 

1  >  let hun 
Z)  techno 

togic 

Misspell  ing,  H 

offers  an 

3)  too  lino 

logii* 

cor rent  spelling 

of  that 

4)  techiuj 

logics 

Von  dan’ t  wen  h 

Live  to  iyr 

5)  tedmi 

cal 

n  usher  of  gciur  s 

election, 

j  lil  techiii 

tally 

When  a  word  is  misspelled,  the  user  can 
ask  The  "BOSS”  for  suggestions  as  to  how 
to  correctly  spell  the  word.  With  only  one 
keystroke.  The  "BOSS'  will  display  in  a 
dynamic  on-screen  window,  up  to  eight 
spelling  suggestions  in  fhe  order  of  proba¬ 
ble  phonetic  correctness. 


IT  CORRECTS 


Thniifi  you 
Acronym  Jr 
MtiKc  fit  .her 

for  your  i 
ir  Word!1  Ins 

.  utifd  pro i 

int trust  hi  HorrirJiis-K 
;-TCJ  ^  new  Built- hi  On-lint 
;ecsnrr  dhsoliitEi.  The  DOS! 

ailtWiAt  1 C-! 

illy  corrcr 

its  any  i^isspal lings.  Thii 

MEM  tcClmtl 

)itiyy§.riid  i 

its  f ppnv  Professional  Sufi* 

pisspem i ii*{p  it  uffers  ah  option  that  iisv;  tin 

correct  sf 

mil  Jog  uf 

that  word  -  in  order  of  pi 

you  don'  i 

even  have 

to  type  in  the  word  that  » 

1  lumber  of  your  selection,  Ann  the  KiE^pcHea  l 

And  The 

"BOSS' 

Aufo  Correct  feature 

enables  users  to  "fix"  these  misspelled 
words  directly  m  text  with  a  single  key¬ 
stroke,  The  BOSS”  is  a  total  spelling  sys¬ 
tem  that  Checks,  Suggests,  and  Corrects 
your  Spelling,  All  built-in. 


THE  TOTAL  WORD  PROCESSING  SOLUTION  -  PLUS  ALL  THE  HELP  YOU’LL  NEED, 


With  over  70,000  word  processors  in 
use  worldwide.  Professional  Software, 
Inc,  has  designed  WordPlus-PC  to  con¬ 
tain  all  the  powerful  features  you 
expect  —  and  to  be  the  easiest  word 
processor  to  use  anywhere.  But  there 
will  always  be  questions.  That's  why 


Professional  Software  has  an  entire 
bank  of  nation-wide  TOLL  FREE 
customer  HELP  lines  to  support  our 
registered  users.  This  service  is  avail¬ 
able  at  Ho  Charge  during  the  90  days 
following  the  receipt  of  your  registered 
users  card. 


Demand  to  see  the  BOSS  in  person 

Visit  your  local  professional  computer 
dealer  or  call  us  toll  free  for  the  dealer 
nearest  you.  Once  you  witness  the 
BOS5  in  action,  you'll  see  that  all  other 
word  processors  have  become  totally 
obsolete. 


Demand  to  see  the  “BOSS”  today!  Call  us  toll  free,  1-800-343-4074. 


Professional  Software,  Inc. 

51  Fremont  Street,  Needham,  MA  02194  Telephone  (617)  444-5224  Telex  951579 
Now  Available  for  IBM-PC  and  Compatibles,  DEC  Rainbow,  Tl  Professional,  and  Victor  9000. 
Dealer,  distributor,  OEM  manufacturer,  and  international  inquiries  are  invited. 


WordPlus-PC  and  The  BOKr  are  trademarks  of  Professional  Software,  Inc. 

-2-3  is  a  trademark  of  Lotus  Dcvelo(mcnt  Corp,.  dBASE  II  is  a  trademark  of  Ashton-Tate. 
Speciftea  lions  arc  subject  to  change  without  notice. 


WordPlus-PC  was  designed  and  written  by  Andres  ELscallon. 
■ '  With  IBM  dot  matrix  and  Diablo  630  EC5  printer, 
bar  graphs  and  other  tha ris  can  be  printed  inside  text- 


Now  the  excitement  of  original 
arcade  graphics  and  sound  effects 
comes  home  to  your  computer 

Introducing  ATARISOFT™  A  new 
source  for  computer  software. 

If  you  own  a  Commodore  VIC  2D 
or  64,  a  Texas  Instruments  99/4A,  an 
IBM  or  an  Apple  II,  you  can  play  the 
original  arcade  hits, 

DONKEY  KONG  by  Nintendo, 
CENTIPEDE™  PAC-MAN,  DEFENDER, 
ROBOTRDN:  20B4,  STARGATE  and 
DIG  DUG.  CDn  the  Tl  99/4A  you  can 
also  play  Protector  II,  Shamus,  Picnic 
Paranoia  and  Super  Storm.) 

So,  start  playing  the  original  hits 
on  your  computer 

Dnly  from  ATARISOFT 
Some  games  also  available  on 
ColecoVision  and  Intellivision. 


ATARISOFT 

Now  your  computer  fits 
the  arcade  hits. 


DONKEY  KONG.  Mario  and  NINTENDO  are  trademarks  and  © 
Nintendo  1SB1, 1983.  FftOM AN  and  characters  are  trademarks 
of  Bally  Midway  Mfg.  Co.  subltcensed  to  Atari,  Inc.  by  Namco- 
Amerrca,  Inc.  DEFENDER  is  a  trademark  of  Williams  Electronics. 
Inc  .  manufactured  under  license  from  Williams  Electronics,  Inc. 
ROBOTRDN:  £084  is  a  trademark  and  ©  Of  Williams  1902,  manu¬ 
factured  under  license  from  Williams  Electronics.  Inc.  STARGATE 
is  a  trademark  and  ©  of  Williams  1981.  manufactured  under  license 
from  Wiliams  Electronics.  Inc.  DIG  DUG  is  created  and  designed 
bylMamcoLtd.  manufactured  under  license  by  Atari,  Inc.  Trade¬ 
marks  and  ©  Nsmcc  1982.  PROTECTOR  II  is  a  trademark  of  Syn¬ 
apse  Software  Corporation,  manufactured  under  license  by  Atari. 
Inc.  SHAMUS  is  a  trademark  of  Synapse  Software  Corporation, 
manufactured  under  license  by  Atari,  Inc  PICNIC  PARANOIA  is  a 
trademark  of  Synapse  Software  Corporation,  manufactured  by 
Atari,  Inc.  SUPER  STORM  is  engineered  and  designed  by  Synapse 
Software  Corporation,  manufactured  under  license  by  Atari,  Inc. 
ATARISOFT'1'  products  ere  manufactured  by  Aten.  Inc.  for  use  on 
the  above  referenced  machines  and  are  not  made,  licensed  or 
approved  by  the  manufacturers  of  these  machines.  COMMODORE 
64,  VIC  20.  TEXAS  INSTRUMENTS  99/4A.  IBM,  APPLE.  COLE¬ 
COVISION  and  INTELLIVISION  are  respectively  trademarks  of 
Commodore  Electronics  Limited,  Texes  Instruments,  International 
Business  Machines  Core..  Apple  Computer  Inc..  Coleco  Industries. 
Inc.  and  Mattel,  Inc.  A  ©Warner  Communications  Company. 
©1SB3  Atari,  Inc.  All  rights  reserved. 


Complete  this  coupon  and  well  keep  you 
up  to  date  on  the  newest  hits  from 
ATARISOFT™ 


Address 


City 


State 


Zip 


Telephone 

PRODUCT  OWNED:  (Check  onei 

|  |  TI-99/4A  n  Commodore  Vic  20 

|  |  IBM  PC  Q  Intellivision 

|~|  Commodore  64  Q  Apple  II 
|  |  ColecoVision  Q  Other 

Mail  to; 

Atari,  Inc.,  P.D.  8ox  2943, 

So,  San  Francisco,  CA  94080.  asm  19 


Do  you  want 
the  #1  Seller 
or  the 

#1  Financial 


I  \  F<eau°22t-'—^ 


YgMIlNr^ 


\  a  a  ^°nl 

\  On<*3— ' ■"" 
--A'ooejS 


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MONEY  MAGAZINE  -  Nov.  1982 

“Among  bookkeeping  programs,  earns  high  marks  and  is  easy  to  use." 

CREATIVE  COMPUTING  -  Jan.  1983 

"77?e  documentation  is  thorough,  easily  read,  and  complete." 

" The  program  is  so  easy  to  use  that  rarely  will  reference  have  to  be  made  to  the 
manual. "  <%C* 

SOFTALK  -  Jan.  1982  t  \$V«' 

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"...  exceptionally  fast.  .  . .  highly  recommend.” 

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Aitn4fl:w  IBM1*.  VisiCalc,M,  The  Home  Accountant11*  are  trademarks  of  Ai^ki  IBM  L'lbrOuip  and  Continental  Software  rcspcciivciv 


is  written  and  time  the  routine  is  called.  A  print 
command  will  overwrite  the  code  and  a  scroll 
command  will  erase  it. 

Fortunately  there  is  another  and  simpler 
method  to  determine  Basic's  data  segment.  On 
page  3-22  of  the  Technical  Reference  manual, 
it  is  stated  that  Basic's  segment  address  is 
stored  in  absolute  memory  location  510  and 
511.  The  following  one-line  Basic  statement 
will  print  this  value: 

10  DEF  SEG  =  0  :  J%  =  256  *  PEEK(&H511) 

+  PEEK(&H510)  :  PRINT  HEX$(J%) 

This  is  the  same  value  returned  by  1%  in 
"Questions  and  Answers."  The  def  seg  —  0  is 
to  get  to  absolute  memory  0,  and  the  arithme¬ 
tic  converts  hex  numbers  to  decimal. 

John  J.  Byrne,  New  Canaan,  CT 

Rounding  Bug 

Bernard  Robinson's  "How  to  Get  'Round  the 
Rounding  Bug"  (August  1983)  is  a  case  of  the 
cure  being  worse  than  the  disease.  I'm  referring 
to  the  defined  function  FnEmd,  which  is  intro¬ 
duced  on  page  96. 

When  the  most  significant  digit  to  be 
rounded  off  is  exactly  five,  FnEmd  behaves  as 
advertised:  It  rounds  the  preceding  digit,  if 
odd,  up  to  the  next  even  digit;  otherwise  it 
truncates.  The  problem  arises  when  the  num¬ 
ber  to  be  rounded  already  has  the  desired  num¬ 
ber  of  decimal  places. 

Example:  Divide  100  by  8  and  ask  FnEmd 
to  round  the  result  to  one  decimal  place;  you'll 
get  back  12.6.  Or  square  3.5  and  round  to  two 
decimals  and  you'll  get  12.26.  In  general,  if  you 
ask  FnEmd  to  round  to  K  places  a  number  that 
already  has  exactly  K  places,  it  will  always  in¬ 
crement  the  final  significant  digit  when  the  last 
digit  is  odd. 

The  algorithm  is  well  suited  to  pocket  cal¬ 
culators  because  no  one  in  his  or  her  right  mind 
would  round  a  two-place  number  to  two  deci¬ 
mals.  The  computer,  of  course,  will  blithely  go 
ahead  and  do  so,  thereby  creating  the  most  in¬ 
sidious  bug  of  them  all— the  kind  that  looks 
plausible. 

How  about  it,  guys?  A  little  more  care, 
please? 

John  van  Laer,  New  York,  NY 

Good  Screen,  No  Dump 
I  am  writing  about  "From  Screen  to  Dump  in 
Almost  60  Flat"  (July  1983).  I  have  entered  the 
subroutine  and  the  graphics  image  program. 
I've  also  checked  to  make  sure  there  are  no  er¬ 
rors  and  have  run  both  the  subroutine  and  the 
program. 

The  graphics  image  is,  to  say  the  least,  im¬ 
pressive,  but  when  it  is  done  the  printer  doesn't 
print  it.  I  have  a  pc,  a  color  /graphics  card,  and 
an  Epson  MX-80  with  Graftrax-Plus.  The  Ba¬ 
sic  subroutine  is  saved  under  the  name  HRSD 
and  when  run  saves  the  subroutine  under 


14 


softcilk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


FriendlyWare 


PC  INTRODUCTORY  SET 
MASTER  DISKETTE  No.1 


9)  Mastermind 

10)  Nevada  Dice 

11)  Killer  Maze 

12)  Sea  Battle 

13)  Boggy  Marsh 

14)  Hangman 

15)  Tic  Tac  Toe 

16)  Home  Vision 

17)  Home  Hearing 


1)  History  and  introduction 
to  Computers 


2)  Operating  Systems 

3)  Languages 

4)  Screen  Prompts 


5)  Memory  and  Storage 

6)  Files,  Fields,  Records 

7)  Helpful  DOS  Commands 

8)  Anatomy  of  a  Program 


FriendlyWare 

PC  INTRODUCTORY  SET 
MASTER  DISKETTE  No.2 


1)  Wildcatter 

2)  You  Draw  It 

3)  Peg  Leap 

4)  Dominoes 


8)  PC  Golf 

9)  Head  Coach 
Blackjack 

11)  Othello 


THE  3  DISKETTE 
CURE  FOR 
COMPUTER-  PHOBIA 


12)  Biorhythm  Sports 


The  novice  computer  user  wants  more  than  a  lesson. 


Predicting 

6)  Towers  of  Atlantis 

7)  Personal  Biorhythms 


He  wants  an  easy  and  enjoyable  way  to  get  to  know  his  ma¬ 
chine,  feel  at  home  around  it,  and  find  out  what  he  can  do 


with  it. 


Tens  of  thousands  of  PC  and  XT  owners  have  gotten  what 
they  wanted  with  the  Intro  Set. 

It's  proving  to  be  the  perfect  blend  of  education,  entertain¬ 
ment,  and  practicality  for  the  new  user. 

Nothing  else  on  the  market  has  helped  more  people  over¬ 
come  "computer  phobia"  than  the  Intro  Set. 

Suggested  Retail:  $49.95 

Compatible  with  the  IBM  PC  or  XT  —  DOS  1.1  or  2.0 

FriendlySoft,  Inc. 

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^  PC 

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STATISTICIAN 

A  POWERFUL, 

NEW  STATISTICS  PACKAGE 
FOR  THE  IBM  PC 

Are  you  tired  of  complicated  dala  inpul 
and  analysis  specification  on  main¬ 
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ment,  reports,  statistics  on  unlimited 
cases?  Are  you  ready  to  do  profession¬ 
al  statistics  in  your  own  office  within 
minutes? 

Let  PC  STATISTICIAN1*  do  the  work  for  you 


EASY  TO  USE 

PC  STATISTICIAN^  is  flexible  and 
sophisticated,  yel  simple  to  use  Follow 
the  examples  in  the  manual,  then  start 
analyzing  experimental  or  survey  data 
immediately 

CHOOSES  CASES 
AUTOMATICALLY 

To  get  reports  on  your  data,  specify  the 
analysis,  then  the  variables  and  varia¬ 
ble  levels.  If  you  have  all  of  your  data 
in  a  single  file,  PC  STATISTICIAN :w  can 
choose  the  records  and  variables  for 
your  analysis  automatically  It  even 
handles  missing  data  automatically. 

COMPREHENSIVE 

You  will  be  able  to  carry  out  virtually  all 
of  your  data  analysis  with  this  one  pack¬ 
age.  PC  STATISTICIAN'*  includes: 
Research  data  base 
Search  &  select  on  1-4  variables 
Crosstabulation  on  1-5  variables 
Descriptive  statistics 
Frequency  distribution 
T-tests 
1-way  anova 
Nonparametrics 
Correlations 
Curvefitting 
Multiple  regression 
Contingency  tables 
Data  transformations 
Graphics 

PC  STATISTICIAN T*  comes  with  a  10  day 
money  back  guarantee  This  is  the  first 
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HUMAN  SYSTEMS  DYNAMICS 

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or  Write 

HUMAN  SYSTEMS  DYNAMICS 
9010  Reseda  Btvd,  Suite  222/Dept.  S 
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Dealer  Inquiries  Invited  .'PH 


Dumpscm.  When  the  time  comes  to  run  the 
subroutine,  the  disk  is  accessed  but  the  access 
is  not  terminated.  It  continually  runs  the  drive. 
Control-break  does  nothing  to  stop  this, 
Could  you  please  help  me  solve  my  problem?  I 
am  anxious  to  use  this  screen  dump, 

Jeff  Elder  Ames,  IA 

Peop/e  ujit/i  /ess  than  96K  must  make  the  fol¬ 
lowing  changes  to  the  programs  to  call  the 
Du mpsc rnma ch in e- Ian gu age  subrou tine .  This 
comtnand  should  be  given  when  the  DOS 
prompt  appears  on  the  screen : 

A)  BASIC  A  /M  :  &H8000 


This  command  reserves  a  4K  area  of  space 
for  the  machine  language  subroutine , 

A  warning  IBM  publishes  in  the  Basic  man¬ 
ual  is  that  bload  does  not  perform  an  address - 
range  check .  Since  the  bload  command  was 
trying  to  load  the  memory-image  file  outside 
the  available  memory  range ,  the  command 
could  never  be  completed  and  the  disk  drive 
ran  continually.  The  def  seg  in  line  20  and  the 
bload  in  line  30  should  be  changed  for  the  ma¬ 
chine  language  program  to  be  loaded  correctly 
and  executed  in  machines  with  less  than  96K< 


Below  is  the  complete  Fast  draw  program , 


10  SCREEN  2,0,0 

11  DEF  SEG  = 
&HB800 

12  BLOAD 
"PICTURE" 

20  DEF  SEG  = 
&HFE0 
30  BLOAD 

"DUMPSCRN",0 
40  WIDTH 
"LPT1:",255 
60  SUBRT  %  =  0 
70  CALL  SUBRT% 
80  END 


'  hi-res  graphics 
'  addrs  of  graphics 
buffer 

'  load  hi-res  picture 

'  decimal  location 
65024 

'  toad  machine  lang* 
prog. 

'  set  printer  width 


Christopher  j.  Lindell,  Cot  a  faille,  IA 


Sony  Profed  Monitor 

1  read  with  great  interest  the  letter  from  Dr 
Malladi  Subbaiah  (August  1983)  regarding 
problems  connecting  a  Sony  Profeel  monitor 
to  his  pc.  i  just  connected  a  Sony  Monitor  KX- 
1211HG  to  my  pc  without  any  problems. 
Some  of  your  readers  may  not  realize  that 
Sony  has  an  RGB  interface  for  the  pc. 

The  Sony  monitor  and  interface  require  no 
special  wiring.  The  interface  plugs  directly  into 
the  monitor  and  the  color/graphics  card, 

Stephen  Sarhad,  San  Rafael,  CA 

In  Search  of  the  Basic  Shell  Command 
Having  read  the  problems  expressed  by  John 
Mastronardo  (Questions  and  Answers,  Octo¬ 
ber  1983),  1  thought  readers  might  be  inter¬ 
ested  in  a  means  of  exiting  from  Basic  for  the 
purpose  of  executing  DOS  commands  using 
the  elusive  she//  command.  It  can  be  done  sim¬ 
ply  by  telling  Basic  where  to  resume  processing 
when  it  has  finished  the  DOS  activities* 


The  following  example  should  solve  the 
problem: 

70  JOBS  -  "DIR"  :  GOSUB  950 
80  —  940  'other  Basic  statements 
950 ' 

960  DEF  SEG  r  A  =  PEEK(&H30)  :  B  = 

PEEK(&H31)  'get  offset  to  start  of 
program 

970  SHELL  JOBS  "execute  DOS  command 
980  DEF  SEG  :  POKE  &H30,A  :  POKE 

&H31,B  "restore  offset  to  start  of 
program 
990  RETURN 

Terry  Chisholm,  Cincinnati,  OH 
Assembling  Life 

I  read  Robert  Fruit  s  article  and  studied  his  Pas¬ 
cal  version  of  "The  Game  of  Life"  (September 
1983),  I  found  it  very  interesting  and  informa¬ 
tive.  Although  I  do  not  have  a  Pascal  compiler, 
1  am  now  learning  assembly  language,  I  de¬ 
cided  to  use  your  program  as  an  outline  and 
convert  it  to  assembly  language.  While  writing 
the  program,  some  questions  arose  on  the  rules 
of  the  game. 

The  way  I  believe  the  program  works  is 
that  it  checks  each  cell  one  at  a  time  and  imme¬ 
diately  turns  the  cell  off  or  on.  This  of  course 
affects  the  results  in  the  next  cell  over. 
Shouldn't  the  computer  really  check  all  the 
cells  within  the  matrix  first,  save  the  results, 
and  then  place  all  the  results  of  the  new  genera¬ 
tion  in  the  matrix  at  once? 

The  patterns  in  my  assembled  version  of 
Life  do  not  seem  to  act  the  same  as  they  should 
according  to  the  article  in  the  December  1982 
issue  of  Softalk  ("The  Game  of  Life,"  by  For¬ 
rest  Johnson),  It  was  assembled  using  Chasm 
from  Freeware,  Any  suggestions  would  be  ap¬ 
preciated, 

Marc  Melcher,  Mount  Kisco,  NY 
Mr  Melchers  letter  clearly  shows  why  he  is 
having  problems  understanding  how  Life  han¬ 
dles  the  lives  evaluation.  That  aspect  of  the 
program  was  not  explained  in  my  article.  The 
table  of  life  values  is  the  three-dimensional  ar¬ 
ray  POSjO.  .51,0.  .26,1'  ■ 2} .  The  cell  in  the  array 
directly  corresponds  with  the  life  values  seen 
on  the  monitor  display  The  50  cells  high  are  in 
the  dimension  0..51  (the  extra  cells  at  0  and  51 
are  for  the  life-evaluation  formula  and  are  al¬ 
ways  zero).  The  25  cells  wide  are  in  the  dimen¬ 
sion  0 .  .26,  and  the  two  life  tables  are  the 
dimension  1..2. 

When  /  first  worked  on  Life  l  had  the  same 
problem  that  Marc  had — that  is.  when  a  life  is 
bom  or  dies  it  affects  the  evaluationof  nearby 
cells.  The  solution  i$  to  do  the  ei^aluation  on 
the  current  life-values  table  and  to  store  the  re¬ 
sults  on  the  future  life-values  table,  As  the  fu¬ 
ture  life-values  table  is  written ,  the  image  on 
the  monitor  screen  is  also  written. 

There  are  two  places  to  look  in  the  program 
to  see  the  handling  of  the  two  life-values  ta¬ 


lk 


soFtcilk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


No  one  else  is  using  this  simple 
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HI  ■  p  iyvr—yyr 


I 


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The  following  names  are  trademarks  of  the  following  companies;  ATI  Training  Power,  of  American  Training  International;  CP/M,  of  Digital  Research:  PC-DGS.  of  IBM;  WbrdSiar,  of  Micro- 
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bles.  Before  looking  you  must  understand  that 
there  are  two  variables  used  to  point  to  the  two 
life-values  tables,  W  and  Z.  W  points  to  the 
current  life-value  table,  and  Z  points  to  the  fu¬ 
ture  life-value  table. 

The  first  place  to  look  is  at  the  last  seven 
lines  of  the  program— that  is,  where  the  W 
variable  is  defined.  As  the  program  starts,  W  is 
set  tol(Zisnot  set  at  this  time).  The  for  state¬ 
ment  four  lines  from  the  program  end  has  the 
W  variable  count  from  1  to  2.  Then  the  goto 
statement  that  follows  the  for  statement  cre¬ 
ates  an  infinite  loop,  so  W  keeps  counting  1,  2, 
1,  2,  1,  2.  .  .. 

The  second  place  to  look  is  the  first  state¬ 
ment  in  the  procedure  check.  The  procedure 
check  is  found  in  the  last  column  of  the  pro¬ 
gram  listing  near  the  top  of  the  page.  That  first 
statement  is  Z  :  —  W  MOD  2  +  1;.  This  state¬ 
ment  is  using  modulo  arithmetic  on  the  varia¬ 
ble  W.  For  those  unfamiliar  with  modulo 
arithmetic,  IBM's  Basic  manual  is  a  good  place 
to  find  it.  If  W  =  1,  then  mod  2  will  give  the 
result  1,  and  if  W  —  2,  then  the  results  are  0. 
Looking  at  that  statement ,  it  shows  that  Z  is 
always  set  to  1  or  2  and  its  value  is  the  opposite 
of  the  W  variable.  The  W  variable  is  used  in 
the  procedures  TOGGLE,  SET—  UP,  and  the 
function  LIVE.  The  Z  variable  is  found  only  in 
the  procedure  check. 

If  Life  had  been  properly  documented, 


Marc  probably  would  not  have  had  any  prob¬ 
lems  understanding  how  the  program  worked. 
Proper  documentation  would  have  shown  the 
uses  for  the  variables  and  what  each  procedure 
and  function  did.  Without  the  documentation 
he  had  to  guess,  and  when  he  didn't  catch  the 
three-dimensional  array  POS,  the  way  the 
program  operates  became  a  mystery. 

Robert  Fruit,  Hinsdale,  IL 

REM,  He  Said 

I  learned  a  great  deal  of  very  helpful  informa¬ 
tion  about  menu-driven  programs  in  the  excel¬ 
lent  article,  "Whats  on  Your  pc  Menu7"  by 
Dian  Girard  (October  1983). 

However,  when  trying  to  apply  it  I  found 
an  error  that  will  affect  anyone  trying  to  use  it 
with  DOS  1.1,  which  a  high  percentage  of 
your  readers  have.  For  DOS  1.1,  program  line 
210  should  be  changed  from 

210  PRINT  #1,  "ECHO  now  exiting  to  DOS. 
Goodbye  from  your  friendly  IBM  Basic!" 

to  read: 

210  PRINT  #1,  "REM  now  exiting  to  DOS. 
Goodbye  from  your  friendly  IBM  Basic!" 

The  rem  statement  replaces  echo.  Other¬ 
wise,  when  exiting  to  DOS  as  you  return  to  the 
initial  batch  file  and  Runit.bat  is  called,  you  get 
the  following  error  message: 


A>Bad  command  or  filename 

Echo  functions  as  a  comment  statement  in 
DOS  2.0  but  not  1.1.  This  minor  change  will 
prevent  the  program  from  continually  generat¬ 
ing  an  irritating  error  message  every  time  you 
exit  to  DOS  1.1. 1  hope  this  will  be  helpful  to 
your  DOS  1.1  readers. 

Stephan  J.  Waszack,  M.D.,  Seattle,  WA 

Stripped-Down  Softalk 
Please  leave  all  cartoons,  contests,  games,  and 
cute  but  irrelevant  photos  out  of  Softalk  for 
the  IBM  Personal  Computer.  I  subscribe  to 
your  magazine  solely  for  technical  information 
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or  computers  in  general. 

Please  don't  pad  Softalk;  we  don't  need  an¬ 
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NSWER 

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s 


or  the  last  few  months  we've  had  questions  and  am 
swers  about  the  she//  command,  a  command  that 
theoretically  enables  one  to  execute  a  DOS  command  from  Basic.  The 
general  consensus  was  that  while  it  looked  like  a  nifty  command,  it 
appeared  to  be  incompletely  implemented  and  documented;  in  most 
situations  it  appeared  not  to  work. 

This  month  we  offer  the  following  letter  from  Robert  B,  Relf  in 
Bothell,  Washington,  explaining  what  can  be  done  to  get  shell  to  work 
in  some  situations.  Thanks  for  sharing  this  information  with  us, 
Robert! 

/  first  saw  reference  to  shell  jn  yout  column,  and  /,  too,  was  excited 
about  the  prospect  of  making  use  of  DOS  from  within  a  Basic  program. 
I  had  just  subscribed  to  CompuServe  and  so  l  asked  members  of  the 
IBM  SlGr  and  the y  set  me  straight  on  shell. 

How  would  you  like  to  call  any  DOS  function  from  within  a  Btisic 
program?  How  about  using  type  to  send  an  ASCII  file  to  the  printer  or 
the  screen?  Would  you  like  to  make  use  of  pipes  and  filters  to  sort  the 
output  of  dir  to  a  file?  Format?  Chkdsk?  Copy? 

The  ANsmer  to  your  prayers  lies  in  some  additional  peeks  and  pokes. 
Evidently ,  u>hen  the  DOS  function  called  by  shell  is  performed,  it 


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causes  Basic  to  lose  track  of  where  your  program  is  in  memory  This 
information  is  stored  in  two  bytes  at  &H30  and  &H31  (def  seg  —  Ok 
Before  using  the  shell  statement t  you  nuist  peek  at  the  values  in  these 
two  locations  and  store  them  in  two  variables ,  Immediately  upon  re¬ 
turning  to  Basic ,  poke  these  values  into  their  original  locations  and 
your  program  can  then  go  merrily  on  its  way. 

It  is  possible  that  a  DOS  function  that  uses  a  lot  of  memory  may  step 
too  heavily  on  Basics  toes  and  cause  n  crash ,  so  experiment  with  the 
specific  function  and  be  sure  to  save  your  program  before  you  run  it. 

I  have  found  that  if  you  are  using  a  display  page  ['screen,  apage,  v- 
page)  other  thajt  0  on  fhe  color/ graphics  adapter  screen  output  from 
the  DOS  function  wilt  not  he  printed  correctly ,  and  when  you  are  re¬ 
turned  to  Basic  the  display  page  will  have  defaulted  to  0 .  The  solution  is 
to  set  the  display  page  to  0,  use  the  shell  command ,  then  return  to  the 
previous  display  page. 

Here  is  a  short  listing  that  demonstrates  how  to  use  the  shell  com- 
mand: 

10  INPUT  "ENTER  ANYTHING  YOU  WOULD  ENTER  AT  THE 
DOS  PROMPT",  SHELS 

20  DEE  SEC:  A  =  PEEK(&H30)  :  B  =  PEEK(&H31)  [ get  offset  to 
start  of  program 

30  SHELL  SHELS  'execute  DOS  command 

40  DEF  SEC  :  POKE  &H30,A  :  POKE  &H31,B  'restore  offset  to  start 
of  program 

50  PRINT  " YOU  ARE  BACK  IN  BASIC 
60  GOTO  10 

We  also  got  a  cautionary  phone  call  about  the  shell  command  from 
Paul  Hoffman  of  Proper  Software.  He  claims  that  what  the  command 
does  is  trash  the  beginning  of  the  data  segment— but  not  in  any  predict¬ 
able  way.  So.  .  .experiment  and  use  s/ieJ/  at  your  own  risk, 

Q*  l  have  had  some  problems  loading  and  calling  a  machine  lan- 
*  guage  subroutine  loaded  into  a  Basic  array.  When  I  simply 
bioacted  the  code  into  the  top  of  Basic's  memory  there  was  no  problem, 
so  I  know  the  code  is  okay.  However,  when  I  tried  the  following,  it 
didn't  work;  it  froze  the  system  or  just  didn  t  perform  correctly: 

1000  DIM  A%(300):  FOR  1=0  TO  299:  A%{\\  =  0:  NEXT  i 
2000  PLACE  =  VARPTR(  A%(0)) 

3000  BLOAD  "FILENAME, OB}", PLACE 
4000  5BRT  =  PLACE 
5000  CALL  SBRT(K) 

{Sbrt  is  the  subroutine  whose  code  is  in  the  file  "filename. obj"  J 

I  wrote  a  smaller  test  program  in  Basic  and  tried  again  and  had  suc¬ 
cess  by  letting  Place  =  varptr(A%(10)),  but  this  wouldn't  work  in  my 
longer  program,  I  also  tried  adding  various  def  segs,  but  that  didn't 
help.  1  printed  the  array  A%  after  step  3000,  and  things  seem  okay  as 
far  as  the  loading  is  concerned 
Mark  Bridge r 

A  Your  problem  occurs  because  you  declare  a  new  scalar  varia- 
*  bk  after  you've  allocated  space  for  your  array  and  used  the 
unrpfr  command.  What  this  does  is  change  the  location  of  the  array,  so 
when  Sbrt  is  called,  its  no  longer  where  you  expect  it. 

You  can  correct  *th is  by  declaring  or  initializing  all  your  variables 
before  the  varptr  statement.  If,  for  example,  you  added  the  line: 

1500  SBRT  =  0 

to  allocate  space  for  the  variable  Sbrt  before  varptr,  you  would  avoid 
the  problem. 

Ql  have  recently  become  interested  in  assembly  language  pro- 
*  gramming,  I  would  like  to  know  where  I  can  find  a  descrip¬ 
tion  of  interrupts  for  BIOS  and  DOS,  what  they  do,  and  how  to  use 
them,  I  have  the  Technical  Reference  manual  but  have  been  unable  to 
find  anything  about  interrupts  except  for  what  is  in  the  BIOS  listing  in 


20 


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Appendix  A,  which  explains  only  some  of  the  BIOS  interrupts  and 
none  of  the  DOS  interrupts.  I  am  especially  curious  about  INT  21,  the 
DOS  function  call,  which  1  have  seen  referred  to  often  but  never  have 
had  explained. 

David  Meyer 

A  You  asked  the  right  question!  Leo  Scanlon's  book,  IBM  PC 
•  and  XT  Assembly  Language,  a  Guide  /cu  JYugrflmmm,  is  the 
resource  you  need,  and  it's  excerpted  in  this  issue  (page  44), 

Q+  Ive  enjoyed  Sqfrttlks  series  on  how  Basic  stores  numbers, 
*  variables,  and  programs.  I've  been  studying  them,  but  there 
is  still  one  thing  I  cant  figure  out:  Where  does  it  store  them! 

I  was  hoping  you'd  explain  how  to  peek  at  an  address  from  Basic, 
then  how  to  decipher  which  location  the  contents  of  that  address 
point  to. 

Betsy  Simnacher 

A#  First  of  all  you  need  to  determine  where  you  want  to  peek. 

•  Table  2  of  the  July  article  (p.  38)  gives  the  locations  of  Basic  s 
pointers,  What  you  do  first  is  peek  at  the  contents  of  the  pointer  loca¬ 
tion;  then  you  use  what  you  find  there  as  the  address  to  peek  at  parts  of 
Basic— variables,  code,  Basic's  stack,  or  whatever. 

For  example,  let  s  suppose  we  want  to  look  at  the  start  of  the  simple 
variables.  Table  2  tells  us  that  &H358  and  &H35°  are  the  pointer  to  the 
start  of  the  simple  variables.  These  two  addresses  form  a  two -byte 
number  that  represents  the  address  at  which  the  simple  variable  storage 
begins.  To  read  that  two-byte  number  we  do  the  following: 

PEEK  (&H358)  +  256  *  PEEK  (&H359) 

&H359  holds  the  high-order  byte  of  this  two-byte  number  so  we  have 


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to  multiply  the  value  at  that  address  by  256  before  adding  it  to  the  value 
at  &H35S,  in  order  to  convert  the  pointer  to  a  decimal  number  Now  if 
wre  print  the  result  of  this  peek  and  then  peek  at  the  address  this  state¬ 
ment  produces,  we  should  see  our  Basic  program  s  first  simple  variable. 
Here  is  a  short  program  to  do  this: 

10  DEF  5EG  'set  the  segment  to  0 

20  X  =  PEEK  (&H358)  +  256  *  PEEK  (&H359)  'to  read  the 

pointer 

30  PRINT  X  'the  location  of  the  first  simple  variable 
40  PRINT  PEEK(X) 

To  read  any  of  the  other  pointers  shown  in  table  2,  substitute  the 
appropriate  numbers  for  &H358  and  &H359  in  line  20. 

Q+  1  have  written  many  programs  to  plot  data  in  high-resolution 

4  graphics  mode  but  have  been  unable  to  print  out  these  plots 
on  my  printer.  Are  there  any  programs  or  commands  available  to  print 
out  the  high-resolution  screen? 

William  J.  Stoeffel 

A  In  the  July  issue  of  Soffcr/k,  the  article  "From  Screen  to  Dump 
#  in  Almost  60  Flat"  presented  a  high-resolution  screen  dump 
program.  You  can  get  a  copy  of  the  article  and  type  in  the  program 
yourself  or,  to  receive  a  disk  with  the  program  on  it,  send  eight  dollars 
to: 

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Qt  I  have  two  questions  for  you,  First(  is  there  any  reference 
*  source  for  the  use  and  abuse  of  the  officially  "unused'J  (read: 
unpublished)  pc  X  2T  interrupts?  Jn  particular  I'm  curious  about  the 
purpose  of  function  01CH,  which  is  called  from  the  utility 
Chkdsk.com.  It's  a  disk-oriented  interrupt  that  appears  to  do  some 
checking  of  the  file  allocation  table. 

My  second  question  is,  what  does  DOS  do  when  it  exits  a  program 
back  to  the  system?  1  know  that  INT  2GH  is  called,  which  in  turn  calls 
three  other  system  interrupts  for  cleanup  work.  What  I  really  want  to 
know  is  how  to  intercept  the  usual  return  to  DOS  and  redirect  it  to  a 
.com  program  Tve  written  and  saved  with  INT  27Hr  I'm  writing  a  com¬ 
mand  shell  and  want  to  intercept  DOS  at  the  last  possible  moment. 
There's  very  little  information  on  this  in  the  Technical  Reference  man¬ 
ual,  Any  ideas? 

Steve  Manes 


Function  IB  and  1C  are  identical .  Both  contain  the  return  ad- 
•  dress  of  the  file  allocation  table.  They  really  don't  do  any 
checking  of  the  FAT.  It's  up  to  the  program  to  use  this  address  and  do  its 
own  checking.  You're  right;  there  is  little  information  about  this. 

There  are  two  ways  you  can  intercept  the  usual  return  to  DOS  and 
redirect  it  to  another  program.  The  first  is  to  use  DOS  interrupt  IB, 
This  enables  you  to  load  and  execute  your  second  program  from  your 
H  rs  t  — -  and  then  have  control  return  to  your  first  program. 

The  second  way  is  to  change  the  terminate  address  stored  in  the 
program  segment  prefix.  This  is  the  address  used  by  interrupt  20  to 
clean  everything  up  (see  page  E-8  of  the  DOS  2,0  manual).  You  could 
change  this  address  to  the  starting  address  of  your  next  program.  The 
terminate  address  is  four  bytes  long  (segment  plus  offset),  and  you  can 
change  St  in  the  program  segment  prefix  (psp)  or  change  the  interrupt  22 
vector.  At  offset  26H  in  the  program  segment  prefix  there  is  a  sixteen-bit 
segment  pointer  to  the  psp  of  the  parent  process.  Save  the  current  value 
of  this  and  change  it  to  point  to  the  psp  of  your  next  program.  Then 
when  your  second  program  is  finished,  you  will  need  to  do  your  own 
cleanup.  Restore  the  psp  pointer  so  it  points  to  the  program  segment 
prefix  of  the  parent  process  and  restore  the  interrupt  22  vector  A 


SOftGlk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1933 


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pejoratively,  non-Bell  equipment.)  Home  com¬ 


Plugging  In 


puters  were,  of  course,  virtually  unknown 
then  (except  to  those  odd  souls  who  managed 
to  sneak  a  PDP-11  into  their  attics);  so  at  first 
nobody  considered  it  particularly  outrageous 
that  you  had  to  contact  the  telephone  business 
office  before  you  could  connect  a  modem  to 
your  phone  line. 

If  you  called  the  business  office  they  would 
send  out  a  serviceman,  who  would  proceed  to 
install  what  was  probably  the  most  useless 
piece  of  telecommunications  equipment  in  the 
world;  a  DAA,  or  direct  access  arrangement. 
The  DAA  connected  to  the  phone  line;  you, 
the  subscriber,  connected  your  modem  to  the 
DAA.  The  phone  company's  rationale  for  the 
DAA  was  that  it  was  necessary  to  protect  Bell's 
apparently  delicate  lines  from  damage  caused 
by  incorrectly  designed  foreign  equipment. 

Fortunately  for  us,  one  of  the  first  things  the 
phone  company  lost  on  the  long  road  from 
monopoly  to  competitive  enterprise  was  the 
privilege  of  being  able  to  require  a  DAA.  The 
Federal  Communications  Commission  has  de- 


by  Kevin  Goldstein 


rided  that  as  long  as  equipment  conforms  to  its 
(the  FCCs)  rules,  it  may  be  connected  directly 
to  the  phone  line* 

That  FCC  decision  was  the  first  element 
that  simplified  connecting  a  modem  to  a  tele¬ 
phone  line;  the  introduction  of  the  modular 
phone  jack  was  the  second.  Since  most  houses 
are  by  now  wired  for  the  small  modular  jack 
known  as  the  RJllC,  connecting  a  telephone  is 
as  simple  as  plugging  in  a  light;  modems  con¬ 
nect  the  same  way  phones  do,  using  the  same 
jacks  and  cables*  So  all  you  have  to  do  to  con¬ 
nect  your  modem  to  the  phone  line  is  unplug  a 
phone  and  plug  in  the  modem*  If  you  need  a 
phone  cable,  you  can  simply  Steal  one  from  the 
unused  phone* 

In  fact,  any  of  the  plugs,  sockets,  or  equip¬ 
ment  used  to  connect  your  phone  can  also  be 
used  to  connect  your  modem.  If  you're  short  a 
phone  socket,  it's  perfectly  legal  to  purchase  a 
two-into-one  phone  jack,  normally  meant  for 
connecting  two  phones  to  one  jack;  in  this 
case,  simply  substitute  a  modem  for  the  second 
phone. 

Before  you  traipse  on  down  to  your  local 
Radio  Shack  to  purchase  a  two*into-one  jack, 
though,  take  a  good  look  at  the  back  of  your 
modem  (or  wherever  the  connectors  are;  that's 
usually  the  back) .  If  you  see  two  phone  sockets 
rather  than  one,  the  modem  itself  is  effectively 
giving  you  a  two-into-one  jack.  If  you've  got  a 
modem  with  two  sockets  and  you  want  to  con¬ 
nect  both  the  modem  and  the  telephone  to  the 
same  wall  socket,  first  unplug  the  phone  cable 
right  at  the  phone  and  then  plug  the  free  end 
into  one  of  the  phone  sockets  on  the  back  of 
the  modem  (it  will  probably  be  marked  some¬ 
thing  like  line).  Now,  using  the  cable  that  came 
with  the  modem,  connect  one  end  into  the 
other  socket  on  the  back  of  the  modem  (proba¬ 
bly  labeled  phone)  and  the  other  end  into  the 
telephone  itself.  You  can  now  use  both  the 
phone  and  modem  as  if  they  were  plugged  into 
two  independent  wall  sockets. 

Incidentally,  the  fact  that  the  two  sockets 
on  the  back  of  the  modem  are  labeled  line  and 
phone  might  lead  you  to  believe  they  are  in 


2* 


SOftalk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


HERCULES  is  the  only 
graphics  card 
that  can  run 

1-2-3  on  IBM’s 
monochrome  display 

And  that’s  just  for  starters. 

You  don’t  have  a  Hercules  Graphics  Card?  Then 
unfortunately  you  won’t  be  able  to  run  1-2-3,  including 
all  its  graphics,  on  IBM’s  monochrome  display.  And  you’ll 
miss  out  on  all  the  other  reasons  why  there  are  more 
Hercules  Graphics  Cards  producing  more  high  resolution 
graphics  than  any  other  add-on  card  for  the  IBM  PC. 

But  don’t  take  just  our  word  for  it.  If  you  need  con¬ 
vincing,  remember  that  most  of  the  IBM  PCs  at  Lotus'" 
are  running  Hercules  Graphics  Cards.  And  the  authors  of 
1-2-3  know  a  good  card  when  they  see  one.  Or  consider  that 
the  Hercules  Graphics  Card  is  widely  used  at  Rockwell, 

Mass  Mutual,  and  Carnegie  Mellon.  They  couldn’t  all  be 
wrong,  could  they? 

At  $499,  we  think  the  Hercules  Graphics  Card  offers 
the  best  price/performance  ratio  of  any  graphics  card  avail¬ 
able  today.  As  you  can  tell,  plenty  of  users  agree  with  us. 

Call  or  write  for  our  free  information  kit.  You’ll  see 
why  the  first  graphics  card  for  the  IBM  PC  is  still  the  best. 

;  2550  Ninth  St.,  Suite  210, 
Berkeley,  California  94710. 
Telephone:  (415)  540-6000. 

Hercules.  We’re 
strong  on  graphics. 

■&1983  Hercules  Computer  Technology. 


The  Hercules  Graphics  Card  offers  720x348  graphics  resolution  on  IBM's  monochrome  display,  compatibility  with  text  mode  software,  a  parallel  printer  port, 
software  to  use  BASIC’s  graphics  and  a  two  year  warranty.  A  graphics  subroutine  library  with  screen  dump  is  available  separately  for  $50.  Graphics  software 
that  is  compatible  with  the  IBM  color  graphics  card  but  does  not  have  a  Hercules  compatible  version  will  not  run  on  the  Hercules  Graphics  Card.  Foreign 
Distributors:  Reflejo'U.K.;  Computer  2000/W  Germany:  EdisofPFranoe.  Hercules  Graphics  Card  is  a  trademark  of  Hercules  Computer  Technology,  IBM 
is  a  registered  trademark  of  International  Business  Machines.  1-2-3  and  Loins  are  trademarks  of  Lotus  Development- 


MicroGANTT'"  XT 
makes  project  scheduling 

this  easy... 


Finally  there  is  a  fully  interactive  Critical  Path  program  that  allows  novice  or 
experienced  computer  users  to  derive  a  professional  quality  project  plan,  in  just 
minutes.  As  you  describe  the  work,  MicroGANTT  automatically  displays  the 
schedule  of  events  graphically.  Single  keystrokes  change  the  display  from  Gantt  chart 
to  time  summary  to  financial  summary.  Carry  up  to  100  tasks  in  a  single  project. 
Incorporate  that  project  as  a  task  in  an  even  larger  project.  The  possibilities  are 
endless!  Change  any  variable  entered  at  any  time  and  see  the  entire  projection 
recalculated,  instantly.  Project  files  can  be  used  again  and  again.  Simply  alter  the 
begin  date,  time  scale,  work  week,  worker  dedication,  or  any  factor,  and  the  new 
schedule  and  critical  path  will  appear  immediately.  No  rekeying  of  data. 

Run  MicroGANTT  XT  on  your  fixed  or  floppy  disk  system  and  turn  your  IBM  PC 
or  XT  compatible  system  into  a  powerful  and  versatile  work  management  station. 
With  MicroGANTT  XT,  it’s  a  piece  of  cake! 


Program  and  Documentation:  $395  Earth  Data  Corporation 

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some  way  different*  And  theoretically  they 
could  be;  the  modem  could  include  circuitry 
for  disconnecting  the  phone  when  the  modem 
was  in  use,  for  example.  In  general,  however, 
that  will  not  be  the  case;  most,  though  not  all, 
of  todays  modems  simply  connect  the  two 
plugs  in  parallel  “-meaning  the  two  plugs  are 
electrically  identical.  Just  to  be  on  the  safe  side, 
however,  if  the  sockets  are  labeled,  connect  ac¬ 
cording  to  the  labels. 

That  pretty  much  takes  care  of  the  first  of 
the  two  modem  interfaces,  the  phone -line  con¬ 
nection.  The  other  interface,  the  connection  to 
the  computer,  is  not  quite  so  simple. 

With  the  exception  of  those  modems  pack¬ 
aged  as  cards  that  plug  directly  into  a  pc  ex¬ 
pansion  slot,  almost  all  modems  connect  to 
your  pc  via  a  standard  interface  known  as  El  A 
RS-232C,  usually  simply  called  an  R5-232  in¬ 
terface.  (The  El  A  stands  for  Electronics  indus¬ 
try  Association,  the  professional  association 
that  promulgates  the  standard*) 

RS-232  is  a  low-level  standard,  which 
means  it  specifies  only  the  mechanical  and  elec¬ 
trical  interconnection  and  says  nothing  about 
the  actual  data  that  can  go  on  an  RS-232  line. 
RS-232  knows  nothing  of  bits,  bytes,  data  tim¬ 
ing,  ASCII,  EBCDIC,  et  cetera.  All  the  stan¬ 
dard  does  is  define  a  mechanical  interface  (the 
physical  plug  and  socket,  and  which  signals 


appear  on  which  pins  of  the  socket)  and  the 
electrical  interface  “that  is,  what  the  voltage 
levels  must  be. 

Mechanically,  the  RS-232  interface  specifies 
a  twenty-five- pin,  rectangular  connector,  (Ru¬ 
mor  has  it  that  the  long  and  thin  rectangular 
shape  was  chosen  simply  to  frustrate  hobby¬ 
ists,  since  its  virtually  impossible  to  cut  a  dean, 
thin,  rectangular  hole  in  a  chassis  without  spe¬ 
cial  equipment.)  The  connectors  on  both  the 
back  of  the  modem  and  the  pc  should  be  fe¬ 
males,  meaning  the  cable  you  want  to  connect 
the  modem  to  the  pc  should  have  male  plugs 
on  each  end.  (just  to  be  on  the  safe  side,  check 
this  detail  before  you  purchase  your  cable.  If 
you  don't  see  any  gold  or  silver  metal  pins, 
you're  looking  at  a  female  connector.)  The 
connectors  go  under  the  more  or  less  universal 
part  number  of  DB-25;  so  if  you  decide  to 
make  your  own  cables,  you  should  get  the 
right  thing  if  you  ask  for  two  DB-25  male  con¬ 
nectors. 

If  making  your  own  cable  sounds  like  a  real 
pain  in  the  neck,  it  is— and  this  column  is  cer¬ 
tainly  not  recommending  it;  pay  the  fifty-five 
bucks  and  get  a  professionally  made  cable  that 
will  (probably)  work.  {Before you  buy  a  cable, 
make  sure  your  modem  manufacturer  didn't 
supply  a  cable  gratis  with  the  modem.)  On  the 
other  hand,  if  you  stay  involved  with  comput¬ 


ers  long  enough,  the  day  will  come  when  you 
discover  the  need  for  a  cable  that  your  local 
computer  store  doesn't  seem  to  have.  This  col¬ 
umn  will  discuss  just  how  that  situation  might 
arise  and  give  you  the  facts  necessary  to  deal 
with  it.  Let's  start  by  taking  a  closer  look  at  the 
RS-232  plug. 

One  of  the  thing?  the  RS-232  standard  does 
is  assign  a  unique  function  to  each  of  the 
twenty-five  pins  of  the  standard  DB-25  con¬ 
nector  If  that  sounds  like  a  lot  of  signals  just  to 
connect  a  modem  to  a  computer,  well,  it  is; 
and  in  simple  situations  such  as  connecting 
low-  to  medium-speed  asynchronous  modems, 
most  of  those  lines  aren't  used. 

In  the  simplest  case,  only  three  of  the 
twenty-five  pins  of  the  RS-232  connector  are 
necessary  to  connect  your  modem  to  your  pc. 
You  can  probably  imagine  what  rwo  of  those 
lines  must  be;  transmitted  data  and  received 
data.  The  other  fine  is  the  ground  line;  as  you 
may  recall  from  an  earlier  column  on  circuit 
basics,  a  ground  line  is  needed  as  a  return  path 
for  the  electrons  running  around  an  electrical 
circuit.  In  this  case,  as  in  many  cases  in  com¬ 
puter  circuitry,  a  single  ground  line  is  shared 
by  many  otherwise  independent  circuits. 

The  RS-232  standard  assigns  transmitted 
data  to  pin  2  of  the  connector,  received  data  to 
pin  3,  and  ground  to  pin  7*  (There  are  actually 


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SOftolk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


two  ground  pins,  one  called  signal  ground,  the 
other  chassis  ground.  Chassis  ground  is  more 
or  less  the  equivalent  of  the  third  wire  in  a 
grounded  electrical  plug;  the  RS-232  chassis 
ground  is  on  pin  1.  Signal  ground  on  pin  7  is 
the  line  of  interest  to  us.) 

And  of  course  you  know  what  transmitted 
data  means:  data  transmitted  from  the  modem 
to  the  computer.  Or.  ♦  *no,  maybe  it's  data 
transmitted  from  the  computer  to  the  modem. 
Hmmm.  Seems  there's  a  little  ambiguity  here, 
doesn't  it? 

That  "little"  ambiguity  has  probably  been 
the  cause  of  more  confusion  and  problems 
than  any  other  single  aspect  of  the  modem- 
computer  connection.  While  on  the  surface  the 
problem  looks  absolutely  trivial  (how  many 
times  have  you  heard  that  before?),  in  actual¬ 
ity  it's  important  enough  to  warrant  special  at¬ 
tention. 

In  order  to  overcome  the  ambiguity  raised 
by  signal  direction — who's  transmitting  on 
what  line  and  who's  receiving  on.  that  same 
line— the  RS-232  interface  defines  two  broad 
classifications  of  equipment:  data  terminal 
equipment ,  or  DTE,  and  data  communications 
equipment ,  or  DCE.  DTE  in  general  refers  to 


the  computer  or  data  processing  equipment; 
DCE  refers  to  the  telecommunications  gear. 
Thus  your  pc  is  considered  data  terminal 
equipment,  while  your  modem  is  considered 
data  communications  equipment.  In  the  nor¬ 
mal  state  of  affairs,  the  RS-232  interface  is  used 
to  connect  a  DTE  at  one  end  to  a  DCE  at  the 
other,  (Are  you  totally  confused  yet?  If  not, 
hang  in  there.) 

Data  terminal  equipment  transmits  its  data 
on  pin  2  of  the  RS-232  connector  and  receives 
its  data  on  pin  3.  Data  communications  equip¬ 
ment  receives  its  data  over  pin  2— the  same 
line  the  DTE  is  transmitting  on— and  transmits 
its  data  over  pin  3,  the  same  line  the  DTE  is 
receiving  from.  Now  since  your  pc  is  considered 
a  DTE  and  your  modem  a  DCE,  they  can  be 
connected  to  each  other  simply  by  connecting 
pin  2  from  the  pc's  RS-232  connector  (transmit 
data  of  DTE)  to  pin  2  of  the  modem  (receive 
data  for  DCE),  and  pin  3  of  the  pc's  RS-232 
connector  to  pin  3  of  the  modem  (receive  data 
of  a  DTE  to  transmit  data  of  a  DCE).  That's 
convenient  since  it  results  in  a  straight  cable, 
meaning  pin  2  goes  to  pin  2  and  pin  3  goes  to 


m 


pin  3,  (Signal  grounds,  pin  7,  are  always  con¬ 
nected  together.  If  your  communications  chan¬ 
nel  is  acting  as  if  it  has  just  dropped  acid  and 
you  have  ruled  out  software  as  the  likely  cul¬ 
prit,  the  next  thing  to  check  for  is  a  missing  or 
intermittent  connection  of  the  ground  line,  pin 
7.)  Indeed,  for  some  modems,  that  simple 
three- wire  cable  is  all  that's  necessary. 

Up  to  now,  we've  assumed  we  re  connect¬ 
ing  a  modem  to  a  computer.  In  technical  jar¬ 
gon,  that  means  we're  connecting  a  DTE  to  a 
DCE;  since  that  is  the  configuration  for  which 
the  RS-232  standard  was  defined,  such  a  con¬ 
nection  presents  us  with  no  special  problems 
(at  least  not  yet). 

But  now  suppose  for  a  minute  we've  just 
bought  a  second  computer  on  sale.  At  the 
time,  it  looked  like  a  good  deal.  The  computer 
had  everything  we  were  looking  for  in  a  sec¬ 
ond  computer,  and  it  even  came  with  an  RS- 
232  port,  which  gave  us  a  convenient  way  to 
pass  data  between  it  and  our  pc* 

Right  now  we  think  maybe  we've  figured 
out  why  the  computer  was  so  cheap-  The  RS- 
232  interface  doesn't  work,  so  God  only 
knows  what  else  is  broken.  Oh,  it'll  run  the 
self-test  okay,  but  connect  it  to  the  computer 


via  the  RS-232  port  and  nada.  Won't  even 
beep. 

But  hang  on.  Before  we  go  blaming  the  sec¬ 
ond  computer,  let's  take  a  closer  look  at  the 
RS-232  connection. 

Right  off,  the  first  question  we've  got  to  ask 
ourselves  is  this:  Is  it  even  legal  to  connect  a  pc 
directly  to  another  computer  via  an  RS-232 
line?  Doesn  t  the  RS-232  interface  require  a 
modem? 

No.  No,  no,  no,  no,  and  no.  Just  as  the  RS- 
232  interface  knows  nothing  about  the  type  of 
data  going  across  it — bits,  bytes,  ASCII,  EBC¬ 
DIC,  300  baud,  1200  baud,  or  45.5  baud— it 
also  doesn't  know  or  care  what  type  of  equip¬ 
ment  it  is  connected  to,  as  long  as  that  equip¬ 
ment  s  interface  conforms  to  the  RS-232 
standard. 

Which  leaves  us  with  two  possibilities.  Ei¬ 
ther  our  new  computer's  interface  doesn't  con¬ 
form  to  the  RS-232  standard  or  it's  got  a  bum 
interface  port. 

By  now  maybe  you've  figured  out  just 
what's  going  on  here.  A  computer  is  always 
configured  as  data  communications  equip¬ 


ment,  meaning  it  will  transmit  data  on  pin  2 
and  receive  data  on  pin  3.  Connecting  one 
computer  to  another  via  an  RS-232  interface 
and  two  modems  (one  at  each  end)  is  normally 
no  problem,  since  the  presence  of  the  modems 
takes  care  of  the  fact  that  both  computers  want 
to  transmit  data  on  the  same  line.  When  we 
tossed  the  modems  out  of  this  particular  inter¬ 
face,  we  were  left  with  two  pieces  of  gear  that 
were  both  configured  as  data  terminal  equip¬ 
ment;  that  meant  both  computers  were  trying 
to  transmit  data  over  the  same  line  (pin  2)  and 
both  were  trying  to  receive  over  the  same  line 
(pin  3).  That's  like  two  people  talking  at  each 
other  with  neither  listening,  or  two  people  lis¬ 
tening  to  each  other  when  neither  is  saying  any¬ 
thing* 

The  most  obvious  way  around  the  problem 
is  simply  to  stick  the  modems  back  into  the 
equation.  That,  however,  is  both  abysmally 
expensive  and  utterly  unnecessary.  All  that's 
required  is  to  pull  the  wires  off  pins  2  and  3  at 
one  (either  one,  but  only  one)  of  the  connec¬ 
tors  and  reverse  them.  Then  computer  As 
transmit  data  on  line  2  becomes  computer  B's 
receive  data  on  line  3,  and  the  whole  problem 
is  resolved. 


Of  course,  computers  are  not  the  only 
pieces  of  equipment  considered  to  be  DTEs. 
Printers  are  also  likely  to  be  configured  as 
DTEs;  so  if  you  have  a  printer  that  connects  to 
your  computer  via  an  RS-232  interface,  you 
might  find  it  necessary  to  pull  the  same  trick. 

Unfortunately,  there  are  no  hard  and  fast 
rules  determining  whether  a  particular  piece  of 
equipment  should  be  configured  as  DTE  or 
DCE,  except  that  computers  are  almost  always 
DTEs  and  modems  are  always  DCEs.  Know¬ 
ing  what  you  now  know,  however,  you  should 
be  able  to  check  the  manual  that  comes  with 
the  equipment  (the  list  of  specifications  at  the 
back  is  frequently  a  good  place  to  start)  for  an 
indication  of  whether  you'll  need  to  reverse  the 
transmit  and  receive  data  lines. 

Up  to  this  point,  our  discussion  of  the  RS- 
232  interface  has  been  limited  to  a  simple  three- 
wire  implementation,  which  indeed  is 
sufficient  for  many  modems  that  do  not  use 
handshaking  protocols.  And  therein  lies  the 
topic  of  next  month's  installment,  which  will 
also  have  us  looking  at  the  other  twenty-two 
of  the  RS-232  lines.  A 


SOftGlk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


True  or  False: 

You  Can  Now  Run  Apple 

Software  in  Your  IBM  PC. 


l A  True.  Introducing  Quadlink 
by  Quadram.  The  revolu¬ 
tionary  enhancement  board 
that  turns  your  IBM  Personal 
Computer  into  an  Apple- 
compatible  system. 

Quadlink.  Simply  plug 
it  inside  your  PC.  press  a 
few  keys,  and  instantly  run 
virtually  any  Apple  software 
package  available. 

Quadlink  greatly  enhances 
your  PC’s  capabilities. 

fci  True.  Quadlink  gives  you  ' 
access  to  the  largest  software 
library  ever  written.  Business, 
educational,  and  entertain¬ 
ment  packages.  Software  for 
any  professional  or  home  use. 
This  means  your  PC  can  now 
do  more  than  ever  before. 


With  Quadlink,  there’s 
no  diskette  reformatting 
needed. 

Cl  True  again.  With  Quadlink 
you’ll  never  have  to  worry 
about  "compatibility."  Just 
put  your  Apple  diskette  in 
the  PC  drive  and  watch  it  go. 
Its  that  easy.  Like  having  an 
Apple  computer  inside 

V°ur  T’k 


QUADLINK  “BY  QUADRAM 


And  every  Quadlink  comes 
with  that  traditional 
Quadram  Quality  built 
right  in. 

Cl  Absolutely  true. 

Quadlink  is  available  only 
at  authorized  full-service 
Quadram  dealers. 

J  True.  So  visit  the  Quadram 
dealer  nearest  you  today  and 
ask  to  see  Quadlink  in  action. 
And  while  you're  there  ask 
about  our  full  line  of  IBM  PC 
enhancements.  Including 
the  popular  six-function 
Quadboard!"  You'll  agree: 
when  it  comes  to  quality 
engineering  and  dependable 
performance,  Quadram 
passes  the  test. 


In  more  ways  than  ever 
before. 


quadram  rash 

CORPORATION  k|Wf\ 

43S?1  Park  Drive  t  NpfCross.  Ga  30093  ' 

(4Q4J  923 -6066  t  TWX  010  765  4915  (QUADRAM  foCRSj 


AVAILABLE  AT  AUTHORIZED  FULL 
SERVICE  QUADRAM  DEALERS 
WORLDWIDE 


®  Copyright  1983 
Quadram  Corporation 
All  rights  reserved 


Apple  and  the  Apple  logo  are 
registered  trademarks  of 
Apple  Computer,  Inc. 


IBM  and  the  IBM  logo  are 
registered  trademarks  of 
International  Business 
Machines  Corporation, 


-  u:  Dr  — :  DT 

ml  At 

•a  \» 

m 

i 

“V  »  »  m 

§L-.4i 

'  *■ 

THE 


A . 

you  are  in  me- 
dium-resolution 
graphics  mode  on  the  IBM  Personal  Com¬ 
puter,  all  printing  defaults  to  color  3  in  which' 
ever  palette  youTe  currently  using.  Color  3  is 
white  in  palette  0  and  yellow  in  palette  1.  The 
Basic  poke  statement  offers  you  a  way  to  cre¬ 
ate  colored  text  easily  by  means  of  the  print 
statement.  (See  line  1060  in  this  month's  pro¬ 
gram.) 

The  print  statement  in  medium-resolution 
graphics  limits  you  to  forty  characters  per 
screen  line.  At  times  it  would  be  nice  to  be  able 
to  display  more  than  forty  columns  of  text  on  a 
line.  There  isn't  any  simple  poke  that  permits 
this,  but  the  Basic  get  and  pat  statements  do 
provide  a  way  to  display  two  different  sizes  of 
text  on  the  same  screens. 

Get  and  Put,  To  refresh  your  memory,  gef 
takes  a  graphics  image  from  the  screen  and 
stores  it  in  a  Basic  array  variable.  Put  can  dis¬ 
play  a  graphics  image  from  a  Basic  array  varia¬ 
ble  that  previously  had  been  saved  by  means 
of  the  get  statement.  The  fact  that  hi- res  graph- 


BASIC  SOLUTION 


by  Joe  Juhasz 


Mixing  Text  with  Put  and  Get 


ics  saved  by  the  get  statement  can  be  displayed 
in  medium-resolution  graphics  mode  means 
that  it  is  possible  to  mix  two  text  sizes  on  the 
screen*  As  a  side  benefit,  the  text  so  mingled 
appears  in  an  attractive  ticker-tape  format. 

Our  program  this  month  is  in  two  parts. 
The  first  creates  an  array  containing  graphics 
images  of  all  the  characters  in  all  three  colors  in 
both  forty-  and  eighty-column  sizes.  This  ar¬ 
ray  is  frsaoed  to  disk  for  future  use. 

The  example  stores  ninety-six  characters 
(ASCII  32  through  127)  in  three  colors  in  large 


size  and  in  one  color  in  small  size.  Thus  there 
needs  to  be  room  for  4  *  96,  or  384,  characters 
in  Save. array!.  Each  character  requires  sixteen 
bytes  of  storage.  Each  element  in  Save. array  I 
is  four  bytes,  so  we  will  need  four  elements  in 
Save, array!  to  store  each  character.  The  di¬ 
mension  statement  at  line  1010  gives  Save. ar¬ 
ray!  enough  room  for  all  the  characters. 

1010  DIM  SAVE .  ARRAY  (383 , 4 ) 

Part  2  of  the  program  brings  in  the  previ¬ 
ously  bsave d  image  and  uses  it  to  display  text 
at  various  sizes  and  colors. 


10 H 

15' 

20  H 

25' 

30  J 

35  f 

40  r 

45  ' 

50' 

55' 

60' 

65' 

70 

100 

110 


*  * 
+  * 
*  * 
+  k 
*  * 
■k  * 
*  * 
*  * 
*  * 
*  * 
*  * 


*---  The  following  program  will  create  a  BLGADable  image 
* —  on  disk.  This  BLOADable  imago  can  be  used  to  display 
* —  text  in  different  colors  and  sizes  in  medium  nr  high 
* —  resolution  graphics  modes  on  the  IBM  Personal  Computer. 

The  program  also  contains  code  that  can  be  used  to 
display  the  text  in  various  sizes  and  positions. 


by:  JOSEPH  JUHASZ 


—  *  *  * 
—  *  *  + 

—  *  *  k 

—  *  *  * 
—  *  *  * 

—  *  *  k 

—  *  +  * 
- *  *  * 

*  *  * 
■"""  *  +  * 


DEFINT  A-Z 

'***--  Ask  CREATE  or  USE  ---*  *  * 
CLEAR:  CL5:  WIDTH  80 


Seven  Ware,  for  the  8087 

Friendly  —  Powerful  —  Fully  Documented  —  Available  NOW 


Test  87 


Verifies  correct  installation  and  performance  of  BOB?  Co-Processor, 


Intro  87 


Gives  you  an  interactive  tour  of  8087  capabilities. 
Compares  8087  to  8088  for  speed,  precision  and  range. 


MM  W  O  ^  Extends  IBM  Macro  Assembler  to  include  BQ87  instruction  set. 

iyiclCLflD  ©  m  Uses  Intel  standard  mnemonics,  fully  supported  by  DOS  2,0  "Debug", 


DAnifilAtl^afflAn  Explains  all  B087  functions,  with  examples  and  application  notes. 
l/OvlIllldllCllIOIl  Usable  at  any  level  of  experience,  fully  integrable  with  IBM  Macro  Assembler. 


Seven  Ware  software  package,  including  all  three  programs  &  documentation  $109  ;  with  8087  chip,  $309 


Send  check  or  money  order  to: 

?  ? 7  SolveWare  *  i  F 

P.O.  Box  1246,  Dept.  K 
Redondo  Beach,  CA  90278 
(213)  5434242 


VISA/MC  Accepted.  Dealer  inquiries  invited,  Calif,  residents  add  6Yz%  tax. 

Intel,  8087  and  8088  are  trademarks  of  Intel  Corporation.  8087  mnemonics 
used  by  permission  of  Intel  Corporation,  copyright  1981.  IBM  is  a  registered 
trademark  of  IBM  Corporation,  SevenWare,  Test  87,  Intro  87,  MacLib  87, 
SolveWare,  and  the  SolveWare  logo  are  trademarks  of  SolveWare. 


30 


SOFtCllk  for  the  IBM.  Personal  Computer  December  1953 


Business  Communications  Software 


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rmf«  l«  Ml*  ynwr  t*ln  effartr  «f  Mir  1**1. 

SAltStT  coptitui  tkir»x  put*:  t  (III.,  wta.  »  fivnualt  mar* 
pnmto  Mill  Mtl  tHKtjuMi  jM!  *  frU!  pfU|f«*  0*1 
litnfita  flit  Ub  wlu  toll  * 

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r^rownr  $m 


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tfcCH*  mtr  ist 


KMflpi:)  t:rnr  titmm  I  irrmurr  <:>*tiu*vi 


Select  Text  With  Math  Function 


Saleset  File 


Filing  and  Ulord  Processing  in  One  Outstanding  Package! 


SRLESET  is  just  uuhat  its 
name  implies-a  set  of  integrated 
programs  designed  to  make 
your  sales  efforts  more  efficient. 


FOR  THE  IBM  AND  COMPATIBLE 
PERSONAL  COMPUTERS 


SRLESET  contains  three  ports:  o 
filing  system,  a  revolutionary  word 
processor,  and  a  printing  program  that 
can  Insert  file  information  anywhere 
within  a  text. 

Cut  uour  office  work  in  half. 

the  real  benefit  of  5RL£5€T  is  that 
it  al  lotus  you  to  spend  more  time 
selling.  By  swiftly  integrating  your 
customer  file  with  a  powerful  word 
processor,  you  con  produce  personal¬ 
ized  form  letters  in  less  than  o  minute. 
Vou  can  contact  new  prospects,  stay  in 
touch  with  existing  accounts,  or  prepare 
contracts  and  proposals.  SRl€5€T  will 


even  calculate  bids  and  add  up  your 
improved  sales  figures! 

Speed  and  Simplicity, 

It's  frustrating  to  spend  lots  of 
your  valuable  time  and  concentration 
learning  o  new  software  program. 
SflL€S€T  Is  easy,  cosy,  easy  to 
and  incredibly  fast  to  operate, 
of  your  office  work  can  be  done 
chasing  the  night's  cobwebs  with 
morning  cup  of  coffee.  The  rest 


day  can  then  be  spent  pursuing  the 
leads  you've  created  with  your  sales 
letters. 

No  Competition. 

5RL6S6T  is  new.  In  the  avalanche 
of  software  products  on  the  market 
today,  it's  easy  to  get  confused  by  all 
the  promises.  Remember  that  your 
idea  of  simplicity  and  function  is  pro¬ 
bably  very  different  than  that  of  the 
overage  computer  programmer. 

Nothing  on  the  market  today  can 
match  the  power,  speed,  and  simplicity 

of  sflieser; 

Suggested  retail  pricer  $£95.00 

MLE^Ei 

by  ^Otl3cL 

1411 -145th  PL  5E,  #302,  Bellevue,  WA  98007 
For  orders  and  information  call  (£06)644-7373 


'SALESEf  and  Ifie  suffix  are  trademarks  of  SOFTSET,  Inc 
*  19B3  SOFTSET,  Inc 


Stroke 
The  Dvorak 


When  you  use  Ihe 
right  tool  for  the  job ,  w 
is  satisfying.  You  and  tl 
work  together  You  get  the  job  done 
right,  and  you  feel  a  sense  of 
achievement. 

But  the  wrong  tool  works  against 
you.  You  manage  to  get  things  done, 
but  it's  uphill  all  the  way.  You're  left 
frustrated  and  tired. 

Today's  standard  key  layout  is 
deliberately  hard  to  use.  Devised 
to  keep  19lhcentury  mechanical 
machines  from  jamming,  it 
constantly  works  against  you. 

The  result  —  fatigue  and  errors. 

What  s  the  right  tool  for  com¬ 
municating  with  your  PC?  The 
Dvorak  keyboard.  Its  natural  key 
layout  works  with  you,  giving  you  the 
feel  of  ease  and  comfort.  Your 
personal  productivity  rises. 


SuieStroke  is  the  total  Dvorak  key¬ 
board  solution  for  the  IBM  PC.  More 
than  a  key-mapper,  SureSlroke 
powers  you  as  you  leam  the  Dvorak 
layout.  Harnesses  your  unconscious 
resources.  Gets  you  up  to  speed  fast. 

Get  SureSlroke.  And  stroke  the 
Dvorak  —  today. 

SureSlroke  includes 

*  key-mapping  software  * 

*  press-on  letters  for  keys  * 

*  audio  cassette  * 

*  learning  software  * 

*  complete  manual  * 


SureSlroke  for  IBM  PC  with  PGDOS, 
£49.95  U.S.  plus  $3,95  shipping.  Send  your 
name,  address.  Visa  or  Mastercard  number 
and  expiration  date  tor  compary  check)  to: 
Seasoned  Systems,  Inc, 

Box  3036 

Chapel  Hill,  NC  27515 
or  call  800/334-5531,  toll-free. 

In  NC.  919/967-5818 


SEASONED 
SB  SYSTEMS 


BM!  is  a  irademni+t  yf  [nlemaiionaj  Business  Machines  Cnrp 


120 

125 

132 

140 

150 

160 

170 

200 

1000 

1010 

1020 

1030 

1040 

1050 

1060 

1070 

1080 

1090 

1100 

1110 

1120 

1130 

1140 

1150 

1160 

1170 

1180 

1190 

1200 

1210 

1220 

1230 

1240 

1250 

1260 

1270 

1280 

1290 

1300 

1310 

1320 

1330 

1340 

1350 

1360 

1370 

1380 

1390 

2000 

2010 

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2050 

2060 

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2100 

2110 

2120 

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2150 

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2180 

2190 

2200 

2210 

2215 

2216 
2220 


PRINT  "ENTER:  1  -  To  create  and  save  bload  image  'PCXTEXTB5V'  on  default  drive r 
PRINT  '  2  -  To  load  &  test  bload  image" 

PRINT  '  3  -  To  exit  to  B  ASICA ' 

INPUT  ANSS 

IF  ANS5<  MV  OR  ANSS  ) *  *3"  THEN  BEEP:  GOTO  140 
ON  VAUANSS)  GOSUB  1000,2000,200 
GOTO  100 
CLS:  END 

'  *  *  * —  create  and  save  BLOAD  image  —  *  *  * 

DIM  SAVE.  ARRAY  I  (383,4)  '“Dimension  array  to  be  bsaved 

DIM  ARRAY! (4)  '-Dimension  array  to  be  used  for  GETs 

'*  *—  first  get  all  LARGE  (medium  res)  characters  —  *  it 

SCREEN  1,0  '-Place  into  medium  res  graphics  mode 

FOR  KOLOR  =  1  TO  3  -Cycle  thru  the  3  colors 

DEF  SEG:  POKE  &H4E,KOLQR  -Set  PRINTs  to  use  KOLOR 
CLS  '-Start  with  a  CL 5 

'  *  *—  Print  and  save  all  characters  from  ASCII  32  to  127  —  *  * 

FOR  1=32  TO  127 

LPOS  =  (KOLOR  —  1 )  *  96  +■  (1-32) 

LOCATE  1,1:  PRINT  CHRS(l) 

GET  (0,0)  ^  (7, 7), ARRAY! 

FOR  J  =  0  TO  4 

SAVE.  ARRAY  HLPGSJ)  =  ARRAYRJ) 

NEXTJ 
NEXT  I 

* - - - - - - - 

NEXT  KOLOR 

'  *  ft——————  - - — - - 


'-Calculate  offset  Into  array 
'-Print  character  in  top  left  corner 
'-GET  character  into  ARRAY! 
'“Save  into  SAVE. ARRAY! 


'**  * —  Now  get  SMALL  (high  res)  characters  —  *  *  * 

SCREEN  2,0  '-Place  into  high  res  graphics  mode 

CLS  '-Start  with  a  CLS 

'*  *—  Print  and  save  all  characters  from  ASCII  32  to  127  —  *  * 

FOR  1  =  32  TO  127 

LPOS  =  (KOLOR  — 1)*  96  +  (1-32) 

LOCATE  1,1:  PRINT  CHRS(l) 

GET  (0,0) —  (7,7),  ARRAY! 

FOR  J  =  0  TO  4 

5AVE.ARRAYHI.  PGS,  j)  —  ARRAY!  (I) 

NEXTJ 
NEXT  1 


-Calculate  offset  into  array 
'“Print  character  in  top  left  corner 
-GET  character  into  ARRAY! 
'-Save  into  SAVE. ARRAY! 


-** 


*  *  * —  Save  images  to  diskette  «“*  *  * 

DEF  SEG:  ADR!  =  VARPTR( SAVE. ARRAY! (0,0))  '  Get  address 
DEF  SEG:  BSAVE  *PCxtext.b&v',ADR!,7693  '-Save  image 
RETURN 


'*  *  *—  Bload  image  and  test  results—*  *  * 

DIM  ARRAY! (4),  SAVE.ARRAYI(383,4) 

DEF  SEG:  ADR!  =  VaRPTR( SAVE. ARRAY !fO,0)J 
DEF  SEC:  BLOAD  *FCxtext.bsv',ADRJ 

SCREEN  1,0  '-Place  in  medium  res 

'  *  *  * —  Test  results  —  *  *  * 

CLS 

LOCATE  1,1:  PRINT  ''ENTER:  character  string  to  display r 
INPUT  ANSS 

FOR  KOLOR  =  1  TO  4  -Show  in  3  colors  and  tiny 

X  =  0:  Y  =  100+ (KOLOR *10)  '-Set  X,Y  location  to  display 

FOR  1  =  1  TO  LEN(ANSS)  '-Cycle  thru  each  letter  of  string 

ICHARS  =  MIDS( ANSS, 1,1 )  '  Get  the  next  letter 

ICHAR= ASC(ICHARS)  '-Get  ascii  value 

LPOS  =  (KOLOR— 1)  *96  +  (ICHAR— 32)  '-Determine  position  in  array 
FOR  J  —  0  TO  4  '-Put  it  into  a  single  dimension  array 

ARRAY!(J)  =  SAVE.  ARRAY!  (I.POS  J) 

NEXT  J 

PUT  (X,Y),ARRAY!,PSET  '-Put  the  character  on  the  screen 

IF  KOLOR (  >4  THEN  X  =  X  +  8  ELSE  X  =  X  +  4  '-Increment  X  for  next  character 
NEXT  1  '-Next  character 

NEXT  KOLOR  '-Next  kolor 

LOCATE  24,1;  PRINT  Press  any  key  to  continue 
IF  INKEYS  - "  GOTO  2216 
RETURN 


32 


softolk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


LIFETREE  SOFTWARE 

creators  of 


PULAR  WORD  PROCESSOR  FOR  THE  IBM  PERSONAL  COMPUTER 


SPECIAL  EFFECTS 
•  COLOR  • 
MULTIPLE  FONTS 


r  SPECIAL  EFFECTS 
•  EMPHASIS  • 
SUPER/SUBSCRIPTS 


DYNAMIC 


PAGINATION 


IBM/PC,  DEC  RAINBOW 
TI/PC,  VICTOR  9000 
with 

dBASE  II  and  1-2-3 


m 


NOW  AT  YOUR  LOCAL  STORE 


SI 


(408)  373-4718 

2E  LIFETREE  SOFTWARE 


©1983  LIFETREE  SOFTWARE,  INC.  •  411  Pacific,  Suite  315  •  Monterey,  CA  ■  93940 


Everything's 

Up 

ProKey 


Nestled  among  the 
disparate  melange  of 
pizza  joints,  tiny 
restaurants,  and 
fraternity  houses 
surrounding  the 
University  of 

Washington  is  a  grand  old  six-floor  Victorian 
apartment  building  called  the  Wilsonian.  Its  el¬ 
egance  faded  though  not  vanquished  by  the 
years,  the  building  looks  as  displaced  as  a 
proper  English  gent  in  a  trendy  disco. 

While  the  Wilsonian  might  seem  out  of 
place  in  a  university  district,  David  Rose,  co¬ 
founder  (with  his  wife  Eileen)  of  RoseSoft, 
seems  perfectly  at  home  here.  Indeed,  with  his 
reserved,  polite  manner,  perfectly  groomed 
good  looks,  and  flawless  attire— his  tie  is  still 
snug  around  his  neck,  although  it  is  quite  late 
on  a  Friday— young  Rose  would  look  quite 
correct  sipping  Earl  Grey  in  a  British  tearoom. 

But  David  is  neither  British  nor  terribly 
young,  and  RoseSoft— the  company  Eileen 
and  David  run  from  two  apartments  on  the  top 
floor  of  this  unlikely  building— is  anything  but 
staid.  In  just  over  a  year,  RoseSoft  has  grown 
from  nothing  to  a  mill  ion- dollar  company 
with  a  staff  of  ten,  and  the  growth  curve  isn't 
even  tapering  off  yet.  The  firm's  phenomenal 
growth  has  come  on  the  strength  of  just  one 
product,  ProKey,  a  piece  of  software  so  inno¬ 
vative  and  useful  that  it  took  the  pc  market  by 
storm  when  it  was  introduced  in  November 
1982, 

Such  growth  didn't  occur  by  accident. 
While  some  companies  are  the  lucky  babies  of 
chance  encounters,  it's  clear  from  what  the 
Roses  say  that  RoseSoft  was  a  thoroughly 
planned  child. 

The  planning  behind  RoseSoft  actually 
goes  back  to  1978,  when  David  Rose  decided  it 
was  time  to  move  on  from  the  Jet  Propulsion 
Laboratory,  the  prestigious  research  institution 
associated  with  Cal  Tech.  Save  for  a  couple  of 


softolk 


minor  interruptions,  Rose  worked  at  JPL  from 
1962  to  1978.  If  you've  ever  wondered  about 
the  people  who  perform  the  incredibly  com¬ 
plex  calculations  required  to  put  a  spacecraft 
into  orbit,  wonder  no  longer:  David  Rose  was 
once  one  of  them.  From  orbit  determination. 
Rose  moved  into  telecommunications,  which 
turned  out  to  be  a  problem  so  big  that  the  pro¬ 
grams  couldn't  fit  into  the  low-powered  com¬ 
puters  of  that  era. 

'They  needed  somebody  who  understood 
the  innards  of  the  computer,"  Rose  explains, 
"so  that  parts  of  a  large  program  could  be 
swapped  in  and  out/'  In  other  words,  Rose 
started  working  with  operating  systems* 

'That  was  about  the  time  operating  systems 
were  being  invented,"  Rose  says,  "and  I  got 
drafted  to  do  work  on  that.  I  became  sort  of  a 
de  facto  specialist  in  operating  systems.  From 
that  followed  a  very  natural  progression  to 
working  on  the  interface  between  man  and  the 
computer/'. 

It's  impossible  to  talk  to  either  of  the  Roses 
for  very  long  without  that  word  "interface" 
coming  up;  it's  a  key  concept  in  almost  all  of 
the  work  David  Rose  has  done  in  his  extensive 
career  in  computers. 

Rose  left  JPL  briefly  to  work  in  manage¬ 
ment  at  a  custom  software  house,  but  he  re¬ 
turned  in  1972,  this  time  as  a  manager.  First  he 
supervised  the  group  doing  the  trajectory  pro¬ 
gramming  for  Viking,  then  he  managed  the 
mission  control  software  project  for  Voyager 
(which,  incidentally,  is  still  operational). 

By  this  time  it  was  clear  that  Rose's  princi¬ 
pal  interest  was  in  the  interface  between  people 
and  computers.  As  a  manager.  Rose  had  a 
highly  practical  motivation  to  tackle  that  par¬ 
ticular  subject*  As  he  explains  it,  "By  then  I  had 
a  whole  lot  of  people  working  for  me,  on  a 
whole  lot  of  different  computers  and  projects, 
ranging  from  technical  people  whose  comput¬ 
ers  were  digesting  navigational  problems  to 
managers  using  computers  to  solve  work-flow 
problems*  To  get  the  most  out  of  my  people, 
the  efficiency  of  people  using  computers  be¬ 
came  my  full-time  occupation  for  the  last  few 
years  I  was  at  JPL.  And  of  course  the  element 


RoseSoft  co founders  Eileen  Rose  (facing  page) 
and  David  Rose  (right)  have  built  a  million- 
dollar  company  on  the  success  o/ProKey, 


by  Kevin  Goldstein 


3^ 


for  the  IB  hi  Personal  Computer  December  J9S3 


that's  absolutely  critical  to  that  efficiency  is  the 
in  an -machine  interface/' 

Toward  the  end  of  his  time  at  JFL,  Rose 
notes,  a  lot  of  work  was  being  done  on  the 
problem  of  interfacing  microcomputers  with 
mainframes.  As  part  of  the  man-machine  in¬ 
terface,  he  found  himself  working  extensively 
with  both  computer  languages  and  graphics, 
two  areas  that  have  remained  his  abiding 
interests. 

But  a  big  change  was  in  store  for  Rose;  He 
was  about  to  enter  into  that  most  sacred  of 
American  institutions,  coupledomhood.  (Mar¬ 
riage  came  two  years  later.)  The  lady's  name 
was  Eileen,  and  her  almost  regal  bearing  and 
equally  reserved  manner  make  her  seem  a  per¬ 
fect  match  for  David.  He  met  her  at  Cal  Tech, 
where  she  was  doing  research  in  neurophysi¬ 
ology. 

Eileen  picks  up  the  history: 

"I  was  getting  tired  of  academics,  and 
David  was  getting  tired  of  the  bureaucracy  at 
JPL,  so  we  decided  to  look  for  a  career 
change,"  she  says.  They  did  the  only  natural 
thing  for  any  couple  contemplating  a  major 
life-shaking  career  change;  They  went  skiing  in 
Utah. 

"It  took  a  long  time  to  decide  what  to  do," 
David  says,  which  is  no  surprise,  considering 
all  the  skiing  they  had  to  do.  In  any  case,  there 
followed  a  rather  checkered  series  of  moves, 
which  saw  the  couple  first  working  at  the  Uni¬ 
versity  of  Utah — he  networking  microcompu¬ 
ters,  she  doing  research  with  artificial 
organs — touring  Mexico,  then  checking  out 
the  Philippines  as  a  prelude  to  accepting  an 
offer  from  the  Peace  Corps, 


RoseSoft  is  guided  by  (left  to  right)  Eileen  Rose, 
president,  Barham  Birds*?//,  director  of  marketing, 
and  David  Rose ,  manager  of  product  planning. 


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soft  Oik  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1933 


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The  target  machine 
had  to  have 
a  little  memory 
to  bum. 


"But  the  tropics  were  hot;"  David  notes,  almost  as  if  he  had  thought 
they  could  go  skiing  around  the  equator.  Which  probably  explains 
why,  after  a  thorough  search  of  all  likely  cities,  the  Roses  decided  to 
settle  in  Seattle,  with  its  mean  temperature  of  about  55  degrees.  Like 
almost  every  other  important  thing  the  Roses  did,  the  move  was  care¬ 
fully  planned, 

"We  knew  by  then  that  we  wanted  to  start  a  business  and  that  it 
would  probably  have  something  to  do  with  personal  computers/'  Rose 
explains.  "So  we  wanted  to  find  a  good  city  to  live  in,  and  it  had  to  have 
a  good  community  for  computers. 

We  had  certain  criteria  that  a  city 
had  to  meet,  and  we  also  had  to  like 
it,  of  course.  Seattle  was  the  first 
city  that  filled  the  bill.  Or  maybe," 
he  concedes,  "it  was  just  the  last 
place  we  looked,  and  we  were  tired 
of  traveling."  In  any  case,  that's 
how  RoseSoft  ended  up  in  Seattle, 

From  August  1981,  when  they 

arrived  in  Seattle,  until  January  1982,  the  couple  was  essentially  look' 
ing  for  a  way  to  do  business  in  that  city.  Both  were  tired  of  large  institu¬ 
tions  and  bureaucracy,  so  while  it  was  only  logical  to  use  their  long 
professional  careers  in  computers  and  management  as  the  underpin¬ 
ning  for  a  new  venture,  it  was  probably  just  as  logical  that  the  comput¬ 
ers  would  have  to  be  as  small  and  personal  as  possible  — personal 
computers,  of  course.  Various  business  ideas  were  considered  and  dis¬ 
carded;  likewise,  a  search  for  business  partners  came  to  naught. 

"We  derided  to  just  go  it  alone,"  David  recalls.  The  two  formed 
ProSoft,  Interchanging  the  name  to  RoseSoft  because  of  a  conflict  with 
an  existing  company.  The  "Pro"  in  the  name  was  meant  to  signify  both 
their  extensive  professional  experience  and  their  dedication  to  offering 
products  of  professional  quality. 

A  big  company  approach  to  small-computer  software  is  not  the 
only  thing  that  makes  RoseSoft  stand  out  among  the  legions  of  high- 
tech  companies  surrounding  the  personal  computer.  RoseSoft  is  also 
one  of  the  few  microcomputer  companies  headed  by  a  woman.  When 
ProSoft/ RoseSoft  was  incorporated,  Eileen  was  named  president, 
David  manager  of  product  planning.  Though  they  decide  together  the 
direction  the  company  will  take,  daily  management  of  the  company  is 
handled  by  Eileen. 

But  back  to  the  story.  The  pc  had  just  come  out.  While  evaluating 
what  specific  area  to  go  into,  the  Roses  decided  their  target  machine 
would  be  the  newly  introduced  IBM  pc.  That  decision  came  at  Christ¬ 
mas  1981;  the  Roses  went  out  and  bought  their  first  pc  almost  the  same 
day. 

But  why  the  pc? 

"Not,"  says  David,  "because  it  was  obvious  that  the  pc  was  headed 
toward  being  an  all-time  bestseller."  According  to  David,  the  problem 
with  all  personal  computers  up  to  that  point  was  lack  of  memory.  With 
its  sixteen-bit  architecture  allowing  for  a  half-megabyte  or  more  of 
memory,  "the  pc  looked  to  be  the  first  personal  computer  with  the 
power  to  support  the  kind  of  programs  1  wanted  to  do," 

The  kind  of  programs  he  wanted  to  do  were  co-processes— that  is, 
programs  that,  although  small,  had  to  be  constantly  resident  in  mem¬ 
ory  in  order  to  carry  out  their  job  of  expediting  man-machine  commu¬ 
nications.  And  while  the  programs  themselves  might  be  rather 
compact,  the  fact  that  they  remained  in  memory  meant  that  any  ma¬ 
chine  at  which  they  were  targeted  had  to  have  at  least  a  little  memory 
to  bum. 

"Memory  is  the  most  precious  resource,'1  David  states  softly,  recall¬ 
ing  one  of  the  time-honored  laws  of  computer  science:  Programs  ex¬ 
pand  to  fill  the  space  available  to  them. 

At  this  point  in  their  history,  the  Roses  had  a  city,  a  company,  a 
computer  on  which  to  run  their  product.  .  but  no  product.  Two  other 


goals  still  had  to  be  met:  First,  David  had  to  learn  the  machine,  inside 
and  out;  and  second,  because  of  the  scarcity  at  that  time  of  program¬ 
ming  tools  for  the  pc,  he  needed  to  write  some  of  his  own  development 
tools.  There  followed,  in  quick  succession,  an  editor,  a  macro  proces¬ 
sor,  and  a  print  spooler 

"These  were  not  products,"  David  is  careful  to  explain,  "nor  were 
they  intended  to  be.  They  were  first  learning  tools,  and  then  develop¬ 
ment  tools,"  With  the  exception  of  some  time-  and  space -critical  code 
written  in  assembler,  these  initial  exercises  were  programmed  in  Pascal. 

With  these  background  projects  out  of  the  way,  the  Roses  started 
getting  serious  about  evaluating  projects.  As  you'd  expect  from  any 
company  owned  by  two  people  as  meticulous  as  David  and  Eileen 
Rose,  RoseSoft's  first  product  was  very  well  planned— far  more  the 
product  of  perspiration  than  of  inspiration  (although  the  latter  seems  to 
have  played  a  supporting  role,  at  least). 

Eileen,  the  apparent  marketing  maven  for  RoseSoft,  takes  over  and 
reels  off  criteria  that  the  company's  first  product  had  to  meet:  It  had  to 
be  innovative,  easy  to  use,  and  useful  over  a  wide  range  of  applica¬ 
tions:  and  the  development  costs  had  to  be  reasonable.  A  macro  proc¬ 
essor  fit  the  bill. 

"Macros  are  a  form  of  computer  language,"  David  says,  "and  were 
one  of  the  things  I  had  worked  on  extensively  for  NASA,  So  it  was  only 
natural  that  a  macro  processor  would  be  one  of  the  ideas  that  were  put 
up  against  those  criteria," 

The  macro  processor  won  out  over  the  other  candidates,  and  Pro- 
Key  was  born.  In  the  personal  computer  market,  it  was  an  exception¬ 
ally  innovative  idea.  Nothing  like  it  was  then  available  for  any 
personal  computer.  Which  was  both  good  and  bad. 

"Of  all  of  our  criteria,"  Eileen  says,  "the  innovative  one  was  proba¬ 
bly  misguided."  She  explains  that  the  "problem"  with  ProKey  is  that, 


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3“ 


It  Reads,  Writes  and 
It  Paints  in  3-D,  Keeps 

and  Talks  to 


It’s  called  "OPEN  ACCESS,"  and  it’s  the 
result  of  60  man-years  of  effort  to 
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the  source  of  its  power-a  relational 
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OPEN  ACCESS  includes  an  electronic 
spreadsheet,  3-D  graphics,  word 
processor,  appointment  scheduler  and 
telecommunications  module-all 
revolving  around  the  powerful 
Information  manager. 


See  us  at  COMDEX,  Booth  W648 


INFORMATION  MANAGEMENT-THE 
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EXTRAORDINAIRE!  Superior  wo rd  processors 
make  It  easy  to  correct  typos*  change  words* 
shuffle  paragraphs  and  format  documents. 
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6 


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to  standing  obligations*  automatically 
coordinates  meeting  times  with  other  busy 
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limited  time,  we’re  offering  you  1  free  when  you  buy  two  or  more  of  equal  or  greater  value. 

All  provide  hours  of  enjoyment,  and  make  great  Christmas  gifts  too! 


/s  there  an  artist  lurking  inside  you  longing  to 
create  colorful  pictures,  animated  displays  and 
eyecatching  slide  shows?  Let  PCcrayon  assist 
you!  Anyone  from  six  to  sixty  can  quickly  learn 
PCcrayon’ s  powerful  commands.  And 
businesses  can  utilize  “ the  Crayon ”  to  create 
impressive  presentations.  Creations  can  be 
saved  and  re-used  by  your  own  programs. 
PCcrayon  even  creates  hardcopy!  Requires 
64K,  graphics  adapter  and  display.  $44.95 


B^concentrate 


J'ust  try  and  see  how  accurate 
your  memory  really  is!  Based  on  the 
popular  TV  game  show  Concentration, 
players  try  to  match  squares  and 
correctly  guess  the  answer  to 
colorful  graphic  puzzles.  Educational 
for  kids,  and  just  plain  fun  for  adults. 
Requires  128K,  graphics  adapter 
and  display.  $44.95 


— 

MB 

mu 

r  h 

■■ 

UuMBERsI 


A  pre-primary  education  software 
r  \  package  for  children  from  one  to 
six.  Children  are  taught  the  alphabet, 
the  numbers  from  one  to  ten,  and  the 
concept  of  words  through  animated 
flash  card  routines  and  graphic 
displays.  The  program's  attractive 
sounds  and  animated  graphics  will 
keep  your  children's  attention  and 
interest  while  they  learn.  Requires 
64K,  graphics  adapter  &  display. 

$39.95 


Tou're  the  quarterback! 

Lead  your  team  to 
end-zone  victory !  A  football 
strategy  game  including  full 
representation  of  playing  field, 
scoreboard  with  running  clock 
and  team  statistics  and 
overtime  play.  Play  a  friend  or 
play  your  PC.  No  manual 
dexterity  required.  Requires 
64K,  any  adapter  &  display. 

$39.95  .  ■  \ 

CvV-"' 


rgsgSL 


1.2 


JL  Vou  can  improve  your  play  with 
Championship  Blackjack.  Perhaps  the 
best  blackjack  game  on  the  market, 
Championship  Blackjack  features 
realistic  color  display  with  sounds, 
casino  rules  you  can  set,  "pro" 
playing  strategies,  up  to  six 
players  at  a  table  with  all  cards 
always  in  view,  "double  J 

exposure"  and  more!  / 

Requires  64 K,  any  adapter 
and  display. 


B“Vhe  perfect  chess  partner !  An 
I  elaborately  designed  program 
which  offers  detailed  chess  pieces 
represented  on  a  chess  board,  six  skill 
levels,  no  commands  to  memorize  (the 
cursor  keys  control  your  moves!) 

Perfect  for  beginning  chess  players 
and  excellent  practice  for  intermediate 
players.  Requires  64K,  graphics 
r  adapter  &  display.  $39.95 


ORDER  TODAY  FOR  YOUR  FREE  PROGRAM! 

Call  us  at  (619)  571-0981  and  charge  it  to  your  Visa  or  MasterCharge  card. 


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OF  SAN  DIEGO 

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because  it  is  so  unique,  it  requires  a  major  educational  effort,  RoseSoft 
ran  into  problems  on  this  score  in  the  same  way  VisiCorp  ran  into 
problems  when  it  first  brought  out  VisiCalc:  People  were  saying, 
"What's  a  spreadsheet?"  Eileen  observes  that  the  educational  job  is  pro¬ 
portionately  bigger  for  a  small  company  than  for,  say  a  Microsoft, 
The  problem  was  exacerbated  by  the  fact  that  ProKey  is  frequently 
billed  as  a  keyboard  enhancer.  While  that  is  certainly  one  of  its  func¬ 
tions,  such  a  name  fails  totally  to  take  into  account  its  much  more  pow¬ 
erful  capabilities  as  a  macro  processor,  "Software  enhancer"  is  the 
descriptive  name  that  Eileen  pre¬ 
fers,  a  term  that  is  indeed  more  in¬ 
dicative  of  what  the  Roses  see  as 
ProKeys  central  purpose;  making 
other  software  easier  to  use, 

David  Rose  started  writing  Pro- 
Key  itself  only  six  months  after  his 
Krst  look  at  a  pc,  in  June  1982,  Ac¬ 
cording  to  Eileen,  it  didn't  take  long 
to  complete,  A  prototype  version 
was  completed  in  July  and  a  final  version  in  August.  Some  informal 
market  testing  took  place  at  the  Seattle  IBM  users' group  in  August, 
"Alan  Buyd  started  the  pc  users'  group  here  in  Seattle,"  David  ex¬ 
plains,  "and  one  of  the  most  heartening  things  happened  when  we 
showed  it  at  one  of  their  meetings:  Out  of  a  group  of  thirty  people, 
twenty  bought  it  on  the  spot."  Since  even  then  it  was  priced  at  fifty 
dollars,  the  Roses  considered  that  a  very  good  omen. 

Although  the  unique  nature  of  ProKey  tended  to  stall  early  sales  to 
unsophisticated  users— they  had  to  leam  what  software  was,  before 
they  could  think  about  enhancing  it— it  helped  immensely  when  it 
came  to  publicizing  the  product.  All  the  major  pc  magazines  ran  major 
reviews  of  ProKey  a  fact  that  caused  sales  to  jump  right  from  the  be¬ 
ginning.  But  Eileen  feels  that  in  general  ProKey  sales  will  tend  to  lag 
behind  pc  sales,  since  new  users  need  to  find  their  way  around  the  ma¬ 
chine  before  they're  likely  to  see  the  need  for  ProKey. 

Not  that  the  Roses  are  resting  on  laurels,  ProKey  3,0,  the  newest 
version,  should  be  out  by  the  time  you  read  this  article,  and  if  you  ply 
David  with  a  few  dark  beers  you  might  even  get  a  whiff  of  some  excit¬ 
ing  and  entirely  new  products, 

ProKey  3.0 ,  for  example,  has  a  lot  of  new  features.  One  of  those 
new  features  allows  you  to  redefine  virtually  any  key  in  any  shift  state, 
effectively  allowing  you  to  scramble  your  keys  around  as  desired;  Rose 
suggests  that  you  might  even  want  to  move  your  key  tops  around.  If 
you're  wondering  if  this  will  allow  you  to  put  the  left  shift  key  back 
where  it  belongs— yes,  you  can;  ProKey  3.0  will  let  you  swap  it  with 
the  backslash  or,  for  that  matter,  any  other  key.  As  you  would  expect 
from  a  company  that  specializes  in  the  man-machine  interface,  repro¬ 
gramming  the  keyboard  is  easy:  The  screen  simultaneously  displays 
before  and  after  pictures  of  the  keyboard,  so  you  know  where  you  are. 
The  newest  version  of  ProKey  also  has  the  ability  to  redefine  a  key 
without  losing  the  definition  assigned  to  it  by  a  program.  For  example, 
in  Lotus's  J-2-3  you  would  be  able  to  move  the  cursor  functions  from 
the  keypad  to  the  pc's  function  keys  and  still  easily  access  origi¬ 

nal  function  key  assignments. 

Another  new  feature  of  ProKey  3.0,  one  that  will  be  of  special  value 
to  handicapped  persons,  is  optional  sequential  shift:  Hit  the  shift  key 
release  it,  and  the  next  key  you  hit  will  be  shifted.  Sequential  shift 
works  with  any  of  the  shift  keys,  including  control  and  alt,  and  the 
sequential  shifts  are  cumulative;  hitting  and  releasing  control,  then  alt, 
and  then  delete  will  reset  the  pc,  for  example. 

Since  the  goal  the  Roses  have  set  for  their  company  is  the  develop¬ 
ment  uf  products  that  ease  the  man-machine  interlace,  it  s  not  surpris¬ 
ing  that  ProKey  3.0  includes  an  improved  user  interface.  ''We  found 
that  the  cursor  status  display  that  we  were  using,  though  well  liked  by 
experienced  users,  was  too  terse  for  beginners/'  he  explains.  "So  3,0,has 


a  status  window  that  tells  you  what's  going  on  all  the  time;  it  can  of 
course,  be  turned  off."  And  ProKey  3.0  also  allows  bigger  buffers  and 
variable  buffer  size,  since  a  few  zealous  users  started  overflowing  the 
apparently  not  so  ample  4  K  buffer  a  vail  able  with  earlier  versions.  With 
3,0  they  can  ooze  all  the  way  out  to  64K. 

DOS  2.0  includes  what  is  known  as  the  ANSI  escape  sequence, 
which  allows,  to  a  limited  degree,  some  reprogramming  of  the  key¬ 
board.  Docs  David  feel  this  will  affect  sales  of  ProKcyl 

"DOS  doesn't  actually  offer  macros,"  he  responds.  "All  it  really  lets 
you  do  is  string  expansions,  It  doesn't  offer  variable  fields,  and  it 
doesn't  have  the  ability  tor  one  string  to  refer  to  anolher.  The  capabili¬ 
ties  are  really  quite  elementary." 

David  thinks  that  while  some  users  might  say,  "Why  should  I  spend 
a  hundred  dollars  when  I  already  have  ANSI?",  ProKey  \  s  many  extra 
capabilities  will  probably  hold  that  segment  of  the  market  to  well  be¬ 
low  10  percent.  He  bases  his  estimate  on  the  fact  that,  while  newer  and 
less  sophisticated  users  might  initially  opt  for  ANSI  over  ProKey ,  "new 
users  don't  stay  new  users  very  long/'  That  supports  exactly  the  same 
point  Eileen  made  earlier:  It  may  take  a  while  for  a  new  user  to  learn  the 
machine,  but  after  he  does  he's  liable  to  want  to  mnve  up  to  ProKey. 

And  what  of  those  new  products  that  came  up  while  the  beer  was 
going  down?  All  that  can  be  said  is  that  they  will  all  be  oriented  toward 
improving  the  user  interface,  since  that  is  where  David  believes  the 
greatest  progress  is  taking  place.  You  can  pretty  much  figure  out  for 
yourself  what  areas  RoseSoft's  products  might  cover:  voice  recogni¬ 
tion.  telecommunications,  graphics.  There  are  mice  running  all  over 
the  RoseSofl  digs.  Think  of  products  that  extend  the  basic  idea  ol  Pro- 
Key  to  other  areas  and  you're  liable  to  know  RoseSnft  s  next  product 
before  the  Roses  do.  a 


OPT-TECH  SORT™ 


SORT/MERGE  program  for  IBM -PC  &  XT 

Features 

*  Written  in  assembly  language  tor  high  performance 

E  x  am  p  le  4  r  000  records  of  1 28  bytes  sorted  t  o  g  ive  k  ey  & 
pointer  tile  in  30  seconds  COMPARE! 

*  Sort  ascending  or  descending  on  up  to  nine  fields 

*  Ten  input  files  may  be  sorted  or  merged  at  one  time 
»  Handles  variable  and  fixed  length  records 

*  Supports  all  common  data  types 

*  Fiiestze  limited  only  by  your  disk  space 

*  Dynamically  allocates  memory  and  work  tiles 

*  Output  file  can  be  full  records,  keys  or  pointers 

*  Can  be  run  from  Keyboard  or  as  a  batch  command 

*  Can  be  called  as  a  BASIC  subroutine 

*  Easy  to  use.  includes  on-line  help  feature 

*  Full  documentation  —  sized  like  your  PC  manuals 

*  $75  —VISA,  M/C,  Check,  Money  Order,  COD,  or  PO 

Ouantity  discounts  available 

To  order  or  to  receive  additional  information 
write  or  call 

OPT-TECH  DATA  PROCESSING 

P  O.  Box  2167  Humble.  Texas  77347 
(713)  454-7428 

Requires  PC-DOS.  48K  and  One  Disk  Drive 


"New  products. . . 
will  be  oriented 
toward  improving 
user  interface." 


SOftolk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1933 


43 


FIRST  CLASS  SOFTWARE 

I  I 

THAT  TAKES  YOU  SOMEWHERE  AND  GIVES  YOU  SOMETHING  SPECIAL 


Wf  *2.0 


AGENT 2.0  A  crisis, 
real  or  imagined?  A  spy, 
ours  or  theirs?  A  file,  fact 
or  fiction?  You  must 
decide. 


bU 


THOTH 

Action  List  Data  Base  Manager 

THOTH  Once  advisor  to 
the  gods  of  Ancient 
Egypt.  Now  yours.  The 
action  list  data  base 
manager. 


C  TOOLS 


C  TOOLS  A  collection  of 
our  most  useful  C 
routines.  Add  flavor  to 
your  C  programming  and 
save  time  too. 


Portfolio  Manager 

BLU  CHIP  PORTFOLIO 
MANAGER  Your  broker 
on  a  disk.  Tracks  your 
portfolio.  A  data  base  for 
investors-with  spread¬ 
sheet  capabilities. 


M  Si 

EVQ 

EDO  Think  straight  but 
think  fast.  The  game  of 
many  strategies  where 
no  strategy  is  sacred. 

ST.- 

mem* 

LYTB't 

WALL 

ST.  HIPPOLYTE’S  WALL 
The  challenge  of  the 
wall.  Colorful.  Ever- 
changing.  Complex.  Will 
you  survive? 


CORPORATION 


Ask  for  Xor  products  at  fine  Computer  Stores . 


5421  OPPORTUNITY  COURT 


MINNETONKA,  MN  55343  (61 2 )  938-0005 


by  John  Sacha 


BM  DELIVERS ! 

After  Prolonged  Labor,  Junior 

Arrives ;  Won 't  Be 
Home  'til  January 


IT 


-  • 

ng flv 

X  ' 


10:00  a.m.,  November 
1,  at  the  IBM  Corporate 
Gallery  of  Science  in  New  York  City. 
People  are  milling  around  and  waiting. 
Rumor  has  it  that  an  Associated  Press 
reporter  is  already  inside.  Around  the 
corner,  a  television  crew  passes  the 
time.  A  photographer  and  some  re¬ 
porters  chat.  And  wait.  At  the  New 
York  Stock  Exchange,  inves¬ 
tors  and  speculators  are  waiting. 

At  47th  Street  Photo,  not  far 
from  the  IBM  Gallery  of  Science,  shelves 
are  empty.  They  too  await.  Finally  IBM 
opens  the  door  and  takes  off  the  shell. 


50 ft tl Ik  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  J9&3 


THE  NEW  ARRIVAL 

The  Peanut,  officially  monikered  the' IBM  PC  Junior,  is  here 
at  last.  But  don't  rush  out  to  buy  one.  Although  PCjrs  will  be 
on  display  in  stores  by  December,  they  won't  be  sold  until  the 
"first  quarter  of  '84." 

IBM  announced  two  versions  of  the  PCjr:  an  entry  model  priced  at 
$669  and  an  expanded  model  to  go  for  $1,269.  You  can  upgrade  the 
entry  model  to  the  expanded  model  by  adding  a  disk  drive  ($480)  and  a 
64K  memory  and  display  expansion  board  ($140). 

The  entry  model  is  very  similar  to  the  cassette  version  of  the  PC 
introduced  by  IBM  two  years  ago.  While  IBM  never  sold  cables  for  the 
cassette  port  on  the  PC,  they'll  sell  them  for  the  PCjr.  Clearly  IBM  plans 
to  support  the  home  (nondisk)  market  for  the  PCjr.  To  this  end,  IBM 
has  added  slots  for  two  plug-in  ROM  cartridges  similar  to  the  car¬ 
tridges  found  on  such  game  computers  as  the  Commodore  VIC-20.The 
PCjr  looks  to  be  a  very  good  game  computer,  in  addition  to  being  a 
junior  PC. 

Like  the  PC,  the  PCjr  has  an  8088  microprocessor,  64K  of  RAM, 
and  Cassette  Basic  in  ROM.  The  Expanded  PCjr  sports  128K  of  RAM 
and  a  single  half-height,  5  1 /4-inch  double-sided  floppy  disk  drive. 


IBM  PCjr  COMPONENTS 


System  Unit 

Size:  width  13.9  inches,  depth  11.4  inches,  height  3.8  inches;  weight 
9  lbs.  (with  disk  drive),  6  lbs.  (without  disk  drive). 

Power:  33  watts  at  120 VAC,  60Hz;  external  transformer,  weight  2 
lbs,  13  oz. 

Noise:  very  quiet  (no  fan). 

Processor:  Intel  8088,  4.77  MHz. 

Memory:  64K  ROM,  containing  Cassette  Basic,  ROM  BIOS,  and 
Diagnostics;  64K  RAM  (entry  model),  128K  RAM  (expanded 
model). 

Connections :  External  sound,  RS-232C  serial  port  (needs  adapter 
cable),  cassette  recorder  (needs  cables),  internal  modem  (optional), 
light  pen,  RGB  monitor  (needs  adapter  cable),  composite  monitor, 
RF  modulator  (external,  optional),  keyboard  (optional  cable),  two 
joysticks,  expansion  bus. 

Keyboard 

Length:  13.45  inches,  depth  6.61  inches,  height  1.02  inches;  weight 
25  oz.  with  batteries;  62  keys,  with  key  combinations  for  all  IBM  PC 
keys;  infrared  link,  20  feet  line-of-sight,  or  6-foot  cord. 

Operating  System 

PC-DOS  2.1,  same  as  PC-DOS  2.0,  but  with  additions  for  new 
hardware  on  PCjr. 

Disk  Drive 

5  1/4-inch,  half-height,  double-sided,  floppy  disk,  compatible  with 
IBM  PC. 

Display  Modes 

Entry  model:  160  by  200  dots,  16  colors;  320  by  200  dots,  4  colors; 
40  by  25  text. 

Expanded  model:  entry-level  display  modes  plus  320  by  200  dots,  16 
colors,  and  80  by  25  text. 

Sound 

With  external  amplifier  or  TV — 3  independent  voices  plus  white 
noise,  16  volume  levels  (28  dB  range  on  each);  internal  pc-compati- 
ble  speaker  (one  voice). 

Warranty 
12  months. 


Running  under  PC-DOS  2.1,  the  Expanded  PCjr  uses  exactly  the  same 
disks  as  the  PC  and  PC-XT.  This  means  many  software  packages  de¬ 
signed  for  the  PC  will  run  without  change  on  the  Expanded  PCjr.  Al¬ 
ready  such  software  packages  as  the  Multiplan  spreadsheet  and  the 
PFS:File  database  run  on  the  PCjr. 

To  the  PC,  the  PCjr  adds  a  number  of  new  features,  some  transpar¬ 
ent  to  application  programs,  others  not. 

The  Display.  An  enhanced  color /graphics  adapter  is  built  in  to  the 
system  board.  The  entry  model  can  use  the  forty-column  text  and  320- 
by-200-dot  graphics  modes  (but  not  the  eighty-column  text  mode) 
found  on  the  PC,  as  well  as  a  new  160-by-200-dot  sixteen-color  mode. 
For  eighty-column  text  you'll  need  to  buy  the  64K  memory  and  display 
expansion  board,  which  also  adds  other  new  features  to  the  graphics 
display.  The  Expanded  PCjr  has  all  the  display  modes  found  on  the  PC 
plus  three  additional  graphics  modes:  160  by  200  dots,  sixteen  colors; 
320  by  200  dots,  sixteen  colors  (1);  and  640  by  200  dots,  four  colors. 

These  colors  are  not  fixed.  The  PCjr  contains  a  color  map  that  se¬ 
lects  any  of  sixteen  colors  for  the  display.  That  means  that  in  the  four- 
color  mode  you  can  pick  any  four  of  sixteen;  you  can  even  have  all  four 
colors  be  the  same.  Just  program  the  color  map  for  the  combination  of 
your  choice.  The  PC  was  constrained  to  a  pair  of  fixed  four-color  pa¬ 
lettes,  and  the  colors  for  these  palettes  weren't  well  chosen.  There's  no 
such  limitation  on  the  Junior. 

On  the  PC,  information  for  the  graphics  display  is  stored  in  16K  of 
memory  beginning  at  location  B8000  hex.  This  is  and  isn't  the  case  on 
the  PCjr.  Many  of  the  new  display  modes  use  32K  of  memory,  yet  the 
PCjr  has  no  memory  actually  residing  at  B8000.  Instead  IBM  maps  the 
Junior's  display  memory  into  its  system  memory.  Details  on  this  feature 
at  the  time  of  the  announcement  were  scant,  yet  enticing. 

It  seems  that  display  memory  can  begin  at  any  16K  boundary  of  the 
64K  or  128K  system  memory.  This  means  graphics  programs  can  use 
more  than  one  page  of  screen  memory  at  a  time,  although  doing  so 
would  reduce  the  amount  of  memory  available  for  programs.  For  car¬ 
tridge  games,  such  consumption  of  system  memory  would  cause  no 
difficulty,  because  the  program  would  be  stored  in  the  cartridge  ROM, 
not  in  system  memory.  But  for  large  DOS  programs,  this  mapping  of 
display  memory  into  system  RAM  could  pose  problems.  We'll  know 
more  in  December,  when  IBM  is  scheduled  to  release  the  Junior's  Tech¬ 
nical  Reference  manual. 

The  PCjr  won't  be  sold  with  a  video  display,  but  you  can  use  the 
IBM  Color  Display — or  any  other  RGB  monitor — with  the  help  of  an 
optional  adapter  cord.  Other  cords  are  available  for  a  composite  moni¬ 
tor — most  black-and-white  monitors  are  composite  monitors— or  for 
an  RF  modulator.  The  modulator,  which  sends  the  display  and  sound  to 
a  normal  television,  is  also  available  from  IBM. 

Look  Ma,  No  Cords.  Junior's  keyboard  has  absolutely  no  cords.  In 
fact,  there  are  no  physical  connections  between  the  PCjr  and  its  key¬ 
board.  How's  that?  The  keyboard  uses  an  infrared  link.  It  sends  out 
bursts  of  infrared  light  to  the  system  box.  The  keyboard  can  be  up  to 
twenty  feet  away  from  the  PCjr  and  still  work,  provided  the  PCjr  can 
"see"  the  keyboard.  If  you  have  more  than  one  PCjr  in  a  room,  each 
machine  will  need  an  optional  six-foot  keyboard  cable.  Batteries  in  the 
keyboard  should  last  for  several  months  of  normal  use. 

PCjr's  keyboard  is  somewhat  smaller  than  the  PC's  and  seems  more 
like  a  toy  than  a  tool.  Yet,  although  the  layout  of  the  keyboard  is  very 
different,  the  same  keys  are  there.  Some  of  the  keys,  like  scroll  lock,  are 
well  hidden.  Below  the  keys  are  small  green  labels  with  such  words  as 
Scroll  Lock  and  Break.  To  "reach"  these  keys,  you  must  hold  down  a 
key  on  the  right  side  of  the  keyboard  that  acts  as  a  function  shift,  much 
like  the  alt  key  on  a  PC.  Despite  these  differences  in  the  keyboard,  the 
PCjr  still  reads  the  same  scan  codes.  Even  software  that  works  directly 
with  the  hardware,  as  many  games  do,  will  find  no  difference  between 
the  PC's  keyboard  and  PCjr's. 

Astounding  Sound!  The  PCjr  has  two  separate  sources  of  sound. 


46 


softcilk 


Hiding  under  the  power  supply  is  a  very  small  speaker  that  mimics  the 
PCs  speaker;  this  will  make  any  program  designed  to  use  the  PCs 
sound  feel  right  at  home.  Then  there's  the  PCjr's  advanced  sound 
system * 

The  advanced  sound  system  pipes  its  music  and  sound  effects  to  the 
outside  world  through  the  speaker  on  a  television  set  (with  the  help  of 
an  RF  modulator)  or  to  an  external  amplifier,  such  as  the  one  on  your 
stereo.  And  with  three  independent  voices  and  noise,  you  can  make 
some  very  rich  sound  effects.  Each  of  the  four  sounds  (three  pitched 
voices  and  the  white  noise  source)  has  a  sixteen-level  (twenty-eight- 
decibel)  electronic  volume  control.  This  sound  generator  will  be  very 
popular  with  game  designers  and  players. 

Games  on  display  at  the  IBM  Gallery  of  Science  were  barely  hinting 
at  the  possibilities.  One  program  played  the  William  Tell  Overture  with 
three  voices — very  charming.  Another  program  produced  realistic- 
sounding  explosions;  you  can't  do  that  with  a  stock  PC* 

Joysticks*  The  requisite  adapter  for  two  joysticks  with  buttons  is 
built  into  the  system  board  of  the  PQr.  And  the  optional  joystick,  sold 
by  IBM,  looks  suspiciously  like  the  Kraft  joystick,  even  down  to  the 
switch  to  turn  the  spring  tension  on  and  off.  This  should  be  a  very 
popular  addition  for  game  players. 

ROM  Cartridges*  Several  games  are  already  available  for  the  PC jr 
in  ROM  form.  These  ROM  cartridges  can  contain  programs  up  to  64K 
or,  with  two  cartridges,  123K  in  length.  This  is  enough  room  for  some 
very  sophisticated  programs. 


One  ROM  cartridge  extends  the  power  of  Basic  in  the  entry  model 
PCjr.  Some  of  the  programs  announced  as  available  for  the  PCjr  re¬ 
quire  both  this  Basic  cartridge  and  DOS  2.1,  so  it  seems  that  cartridges 
can  be  used  with  DOS  programs.  What  does  this  mean?  It  means  that 
cartridges  may  soon  appear  for  programs  such  as  VisiCalc  or  Word¬ 
Star:  the  cartridge  format  would  leave  the  128K  of  system  RAM  free 
for  user  data. 

The  sky's  the  limit  when  outside  vendors  bring  their  imagination  to 
bear  on  the  PCjr.  But  what  about  expansion  in  other  places? 

Bringing  Up  junior.  At  the  announcement,  IBM  was  very  quiet 
about  the  expandability  of  the  PC/r,  but  expandable  it  is.  Inside  the 
Juniors  compact  system  unit  are  three  sockets  for  expansion  boards 
(see  photos,  page  48).  Unfortunately  these  three  are  spoken  for  already 

The  leftmost  socket  is  for  the  aforementioned  64K  memory  and  dis¬ 
play  expansion  board.  Although  the  socket  is  spoken  for,  just  wait  for 
Quadram  and  other  board  companies  to  get  their  hands  on  the  PQr, 
They  may  find  ways  to  stuff  additional  functions  onto  this  board. 
There's  certainly  room  for  more  functions. 

To  its  right  is  another  socket  reserved  for  a  300-baud  modem  built 
by  "an  unspecified  manufacturer/'  IBM  was  proudly  showing  the  inte¬ 
rior  of  a  PC/requipped  with  the  modem  board,  and  small,  white  fetters 
on  the  side  of  this  board  read  "Novation,  "  which,  coincidentally,  is  the 
name  of  a  well-known  modem  manufacturer. 

Finally  the  rightmost  slot  contains  the  disk  controller  found  in  the 
Expanded  PCjr. 


for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1933 


Ttic  views  of  the  inner  peanut;  the  entry  model ,  left,  and  the  expanded 
model .  Note  the  three  s/ofs  in  the  entry  model  (they're  obscured  by  the  disk 


controller  in  the  extended  model).  The  Junior  uses  an  external  tmnsfurmcr,  so 
there's  no  bulky  pouter  supply  inside;  there's  also  no  fan  and  no  8087  socket. 


Is  that  it?  Nope,  If  you  look  carefully  at  the  inside  view  of  the  Entry 
PC frt  as  shown  in  the  photos  on  this  page,  you'll  see  a  connector  on  the 
right  side,  near  the  cartridge  slots.  The  right  side  of  the  Junior  has  a 
removable  plastic  panel  where  modules  can  be  attached  .  These  mod¬ 
ules  are  small,  metal  boxes  that  plug  into  the  side.  At  present,  IBM 
offers  only  the  parallel  printer  adapter.  But  who  knows  wbat  else  may 
become  available?  Moreover,  there  s  a  second  connector  on  the  right 
side  of  the  parallel  printer  module,  which  suggests  the  possibility  of 
piggybacked  add-ons. 


Expect  board  manufacturers  to  add  more  power  to  the  PCjr  by 
building  add-on  modules.  Since  all  the  same  signals  appear  on  the  mod¬ 
ule  connector,  plus  a  few  more,  there  won  t  be  anything  holding  back 
board  manufacturers.  The  PC/r  really  is  expandable,  What's  the  limit? 
The  power  supply.  But,  of  course,  modules  could  have  their  own  power 
supplies.  The  next  several  months  will  be  very  interesting.  Who  will  be 
the  first  to  offer  a  multifunction  card  for  the  Junior? 

Odds  and  Ends.  Also  included  in  the  PC/r  is  a  serial  port  with  some 
rather  odd  specs.  The  serial  port  in  the  PC  can  send  and  receive  at  rates 
up  to  9600  baud.  Don  t  laugh  now— the  PCjr  can  send  at  4600  baud 
and  receive  at  1200.  No,  that's  not  a  misprint.  They  saved  some  cir¬ 
cuitry  by  building  a  serial  port  with  those  specs.  The  send  rate  of  4800 
baud  is  convenient  for  a  serial  printer,  while  1200  baud  is  enough  for  a 
fast  modem.  After  all,  most  people  can't  read  fast  enough  to  keep  up 
with  1200  baud  (120  characters  per  second,  or  about  fifteen  hundred 
words  per  minute).  This  serial  port  acts  as  the  PC/Vs  Com2. 

With  all  the  improvements  and  changes  in  the  PC/r,  IBM  has  strived 
to  keep  hardware  compatibility  with  a  stock  PC.  In  the  case  of  the 
keyboard,  the  signals  are  very  different.  Infrared  signals  travel  from  the 
keyboard  to  the  system  box  where  they  send  an  interrupt  to  the  8068  s 
nonmaskable  interrupt  line.  Each  keypress  on  the  PCjr  sends  a  short 
series  of  pulses  (up  to  eleven)  to  the  8088,  and  each  of  these  pulses 
interrupts  the  8086  The  new  ROM  BIOS  routines  decode  these  pulse 
groups  and  convert  them  into  the  proper  scan  code.  Then,  to  provide 
compatibility  with  the  PC,  the  Junior  puts  the  scan  code  into  an  I/O 
port  located  at  60  hex,  so  any  software  written  to  read  the  PC  hardware 
directly  will  function  identically  on  the  PC/r,  This  should  give  you  an 
idea  of  the  lengths  IBM  ivent  to  just  to  preserve  compatibility. 

How  is  the  PCjr  junior  to  the  PC?  Mainly  in  terms  of  expandability 
and  keyboard.  The  Junior  lacks  the  PC's  expansion  slots,  and  although 
it  has  as  much  room  for  expansion  through  the  expansion  modules, 
these  modules  will  be  expensive,  because  they  must  be  in  metal  cases. 
And  the  keyboard,  on  first  appearance,  seems  inadequate  for  profes¬ 
sional  use.  Well  know  for  sure  If  that's  the  case  after  we've  put  some 
mileage  on  one. 

Aside  from  these  two  complaints,  the  PC/r  looks  very  strong.  As 
long  as  you  don't  mind  giving  up  the  sharp- charactered  monochrome 
display,  the  PCjr  should  prove  a  very  satisfactory  home  machine.  Bet¬ 
ter  than  an  Apple  II  or  lie.  The  Apple  II  is  the  best  computer  for  game 
lovers.  That  should  change  as  game  writers  begin  to  tap  the  added 
power  of  a  PCjr. 

And  if  you  just  want  to  take  some  work  home.  Junior  has  the  PC's 
disk  format  and  operating  system.  It  suffers  merely  from  stunted  mem¬ 
ory  growth— and  that  only  for  now,  ± 


48 


soFtalk 


by  Terry  Tinsley  Datz  and  T  Lloyd  Datz 


eachText  5000 , 
PeachTrees  inte¬ 
grated  software 
package,  sounds 
too  good  to  be  true:  a  combination  word  proc¬ 
essor,  spelling  checker,  on-line  thesaurus,  mail¬ 
ing  list  program,  and  spreadsheet  for  less  than 
$400,  What's  the  catch,  you  ask? 

The  catch  is  that,  taken  individually,  none 
of  these  programs  shines  bright.  In  fact,  if  you 
do  full-time  word  processing,  Poach  Text  will 
probably  disappoint  you  with  the  way  it  han¬ 
dles  text  entry  and  on-screen  formatting.  But, 
if  you're  looking  for  an  inexpensive  means  of 
using  the  pc  for  a  variety  of  applications,  you'll 
find  that  PeachText  5000  can  do  just  about  eve¬ 
rything  but  pay  your  bills — and  for  that  you  can 
add  one  of  Peachtree's  accounting  programs. 

Overall  Design.  PeachText  5000  belongs  to 
Peachtree's  Office  Productivity  Scries,  a  group 
of  programs  that  can  share  data.  In  addition  to 
the  five  programs  that  come  with  Peach  Text 
5000 ,  you  can  add  a  telecommunications  pack¬ 
age,  a  scheduling  program,  and  a  project  man¬ 
agement  system  as  options.  As  a  bonus,  for 
only  $10  PeachText  5000  customers  can  pur¬ 
chase  Peachtree's  Access  Pakt  a  program  that 
links  the  Productivity  Series  to  Peachtree's  ac- 
c  oun  t  ing  p  ack  a  ges . 

The  word  processing  program— logically 
enough,  called  PeachText^ is  PeachText  5000  s 
core,  (Or,  should  we  say,  the  pit?)  You  can  gain 
access  to  the  thesaurus  directly  from  Peach- 
Text's  editor,  while  you  select  the  spelling 
checker,  list  manager,  and  spreadsheet  from 
the  program's  main  menu.  Unless  you  have  a 
hard  disk,  switching  between  programs  usu¬ 
ally  requires  swapping  disks,  since  the  pro¬ 
grams  are  supplied  on  separate  floppies. 

PeachText  Word  Processor.  PeachText  is  a 
spin-off  of  Magic  Wand,  one  of  the  original 
word  processors  written  for  the  CP/M  operat¬ 
ing  system.  When  Peachtree  modified  Peach¬ 
Text  for  the  IBM,  they  created  two  versions. 
One  was  redesigned  specifically  for  the  pc  and 
is  now  sold  under  the  IBM  logo.  The  second 
version,  the  one  included  with  Peach  Text  5000, 
differs  only  slightly,  mainly  because  its  in¬ 


PeachText  5000 


tended  to  work  with  some  of  the  pc  look- 
alikes.  As  a  result,  it  lacks  IBM-spetifics  like 
the  handy  screen  indicators  that  tell  you  when 
you've  engaged  the  caps  lock  or  num  lock  key 
and  it  doesn't  support  the  IBM  dot-matrix 
printer's  expanded  character  fonts.  Otherwise, 
the  two  versions  differ  only  in  that  the  one  dis¬ 
tributed  by  IBM  has  flashier  screens  and  sells 
for  considerably  more. 

Text  Entry  and  Editing,  When  you  enter  the 
editing  mode,  the  program  shows  a  status 
screen  that  lists  the  name  of  the  file  you're  edit¬ 
ing,  the  amount  of  memory  available  (ex¬ 
pressed  both  in  total  characters  and  as  a 
percentage  of  memory  used),  the  document 
type  (text  or  program),  current  tab  settings, 
and  the  line  width  of  the  screen  display.  You 
then  press  return  to  get  to  the  text  entry  screen. 

The  text  entry  screen  isn't  just  unclut¬ 
tered — it  s  completely  bare,  without  even  the 
customary  ruler  or  status  line  to  guide  you. 
Navigating  through  your  document  without 
knowing  the  page,  line,  or  column  position  of 
the  cursor  can  be  a  challenge— like  sailing 
across  the  Atlantic  without  a  sextant. 

Controlling  the  cursor  isn't  much  easier. 
Not  only  are  your  options  limited,  but,  other 
than  the  arrow  keys  (which  perform  as  you'd 
expect),  the  key  choices  don't  make  sense.  The 
page  up,  page  down,  and  end  keys  aren't  used 
at  all,  while  the  home  key  does  triple  duty,  tak¬ 
ing  you  to  the  beginning  of  the  current  line 
with  the  first  press,  and  back  and  forth  be¬ 
tween  the  top  and  bottom  of  the  screen  with 
succeeding  presses.  Control-T  and  control- B 
take  you  to  the  beginning  and  end  of  the  docu¬ 
ment,  and  FI  and  F2  control  vertical  scrolling 
by  line  and  by  the  screen.  Unfortunately,  that's 
all  there  is.  Moving  by  word,  sentence,  or  par¬ 
agraph,  not  to  mention  jumping  to  a  specific 
page  number,  just  isn't  possible.  Of  course, 
since  page  numbers  aren't  displayed,  jumping 
to  a  specific  page  would  be  impossible  anyway. 

You  insert  material  in  two  ways.  Press  the 
insert  key  to  insert  just  a  few  characters:  every¬ 
thing  in  front  of  the  cursor  pushes  ahead  as 
you  enter  text.  Or,  to  insert  large  blocks,  hit  F8 
and  the  text  splits  at  the  point  of  the  cursor, 


leaving  one  line  displayed  at  the  bottom  of  the 
screen  for  continuity.  After  you've  finished  in¬ 
serting,  hit  F6  again  to  dose  the  gap.  Unfortu¬ 
nately,  when  you  use  the  insert  key  you  get  no 
on-screen  reminder  that  you're  in  insert  mode. 
To  make  things  worse,  hitting  any  other  func¬ 
tion  key  (such  as  control,  backspace,  or  tab) 
cancels  insertion  and  puts  you  back  in  over- 
strike  mode.  If  you're  not  careful,  you'll  wind 
up  typing  over  valuable  text. 

Logically,  PeachText  uses  the  delete  key  to 
erase  the  character  under  the  cursor  and  the 
backspace  key  to  delete  the  character  to  the 
left.  But,  not  so  logically,  when  you  use  the 
backspace  key  to  remove  several  words, 
you're  stopped  at  the  left  margin .  This  makes  it 
impossible  to  back  up  to  the  line  above  to  con¬ 
tinue  deleting.  And,  stranger  still,  you  can't 
use  the  delete  key  to  remove  a  carriage  return. 
In  fact,  the  only  way  to  get  rid  of  an  unwanted 
return  is  with  the  line  delete  command. 

The  F4  key  deletes  by  word,  and  F9  deletes 
from  the  cursor  position  to  the  end  of  the  line. 
As  a  safety  measure,  however,  you  have  to 
press  F9  twice  before  anything  happens.  The 
program  doesn't  highlight  the  words  to  be  de¬ 
leted  nor  does  it  remind  you  to  press  F9 
again  —  it  just  stubbornly  waits  for  a  second 
F9.  Although  safety  features  are  usually  appre¬ 
ciated,  this  one  seems  like  overkill.  William 
Faulkner  might  have  been  devastated  by  the 
loss  of  a  few  words,  but  most  of  us  would  just 
as  soon  skip  the  extra  keystroke.  Ironically, 
this  safety  feature  works  only  on  the  first  line 
you  delete;  you  can  erase  as  many  additional 
lines  as  you  want  without  pressing  F9  more 
than  once  per  line* 

Manipulating  blocks  of  text  can  also  be  irri¬ 
tating*  Marking  the  beginning  and  end  of  the 
segment  is  easy  enough:  Just  press  F3  and  an 
underscore  character  appears  as  a  block 
marker.  However,  the  same  symbol  is  used  to 
designate  text  to  be  underlined,  so  its  some¬ 
times  impossible  to  tell  how  many  markers 
you've  inserted.  Complicating  things  still 
more,  the  program  won't  allow  more  than  two 
block  markers  in  the  text  at  any  one  time,  but  it 
doesn't  give  you  an  error  message  until  you  ac- 


for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  2PS3 


tually  attempt  to  manipulate  the  block. 

Once  you've  marked  the  block,  you  press 
escape  and  leave  the  text-entry  screen  to  return 
to  the  editor's  status  screen.  At  the  bottom  of 
this  screen  you  type  a  two-letter  code  to  indi¬ 
cate  whether  you  want  to  move,  copy,  or  de¬ 
lete  the  segment.  Since  the  markers  disappear 
as  soon  as  the  operation  is  complete,  there's  no 
easy  way  to  determine  if  everything  went  as 
planned.  And  although  you're  asked  to 
confirm  your  deletion,  you  can't  retrieve  it  if 
you  change  your  mind. 

To  activate  the  search-and-replace  func¬ 
tions,  you  press  F6.  The  program  displays  a 
colon  at  the  bottom  of  the  screen  without  any 
other  prompts  such  as  the  traditional,  "Search 
for7"  Nor  is  this  function  particularly  power¬ 
ful.  When  you  tell  the  program  which  word  to 
look  for,  you  have  to  insert  spaces  on  either 
side  of  it  and  resign  yourself  to  missing  occur¬ 
rences  set  off  by  punctuation,  because  whole 
words  can't  be  differentiated.  Capitalization 
can't  be  ignored,  so  words  occurring  at  the  be¬ 
ginning  of  sentences  will  also  be  missed  unless 
you  do  a  separate  search.  In  addition,  the  pro¬ 
gram  won't  search  backward. 

Another  limitation  of  the  editor  is  its  inabil¬ 
ity  to  handle  columns  of  numbers  or  text. 
There's  no  separate  mode  for  moving  columns, 
and  you  can't  scroll  horizontally  beyond  80 


columns,  although  you  can  print  up  to  132  col¬ 
umns  if  your  printer  has  the  capability. 

Formatting  and  Printing.  PeachText  is 
definitely  not  screen-oriented:  You  can't  see 
page  breaks,  double-spacing,  or  right- justified 
margins  on  screen  while  you're  editing.  To  get 
an  idea  of  what  your  document  will  look  like 
when  printed,  you  have  to  "print"  it  to  the 
screen  instead  of  to  the  printer.  In  some  cases 
what  you  see  on  the  screen  still  doesn't  corre¬ 
spond  to  the  printed  page.  For  example,  Peach- 
Text  indicates  boldfacing  by  displaying  each 
letter  twice  and  underlining  by  inserting  an  ex¬ 
tra  line  of  multiple  dashes  beneath  the  words  to 
be  underlined. 

Printing  to  the  screen  does  allow  you  to  see 
page  breaks.  Unfortunately,  if  you  spot  any 
page  breaks  falling  at  inopportune  places,  you 
have  to  return  to  the  editor  to  correct  them. 
Then,  you  have  to  print  to  the  screen  again, 
since  changing  one  page  will  affect  any  breaks 
that  follow.  With  long  documents,  this  process 
turns  out  to  be  a  major  undertaking. 

Fortunately,  you  can  control  page  breaks 
by  inserting  a  conditional  page  command  at 
the  beginning  of  your  document.  For  example, 
if  you  type  CNP2,  the  program  will  not  break 
a  paragraph  at  the  bottom  of  the  page  until  the 
paragraph  is  more  than  two  lines  long.  A  re¬ 
lated  command  keeps  lists  and  tables  intact  on 


one  page.  For  instance,  to  keep  a  table  of  eight 
lines  from  being  split  between  two  pages,  you 
can  embed  the  command  1F%L1NES(8,NP  on 
the  line  preceding  the  table. 

Headers  and  footers  can  be  of  unlimited 
length.  Through  a  complex  sequence  of  com¬ 
mands,  you  can  have  them  print  alternately  on 
the  left  and  right  edges  of  consecutive  pages. 
Curiously,  in  order  to  prevent  footers  from  au¬ 
tomatically  starting  on  the  line  immediately 
following  the  main  text,  you  have  to  enter  an 
extra  command  to  insert  a  blank  line. 

Automatic  footnoting  isn't  supported,  but 
you  can  insert  footnotes  at  print  time  by  stop¬ 
ping  the  printer  on  the  appropriate  pages. 

PeachText  does  not  provide  hyphen-help. 
You  can,  however,  insert  conditional  hyphens 
(also  called  ghost  hyphens)  in  multisyllable 
words  that  you  anticipate  may  need  dividing. 
Instead  of  using  a  hyphen  as  you'd  think,  how¬ 
ever,  you  insert  an  ampersand  at  the  point 
where  you  want  the  word  divided.  At  print 
time,  PeachText  checks  each  word  that  won't 
fit  onto  the  end  of  a  line  to  see  if  you've  inserted 
a  conditional  hyphen.  If  you  have,  it  substi¬ 
tutes  a  real  hyphen  for  the  ampersand  and  di¬ 
vides  the  word.  Oddly,  though,  the  program 
treats  words  with  naturally  occurring  hyphens 
(like  mother-in-law)  as  single  words,  keeping 
them  together  on  a  line  at  all  costs  unless  you 
add  an  ampersand. 

PeachText  gives  you  two  ways  to  set  up 
your  document's  format.  You  can  either  embed 
nonprinting  commands  directly  in  the  text,  or 
you  can  wait  until  print  time  and  change  the 
default  values  on  the  print  screen.  You  embed 
individual  commands  by  typing  a  reverse  slash 
followed  by  a  two-character  code.  For  exam¬ 
ple,  to  set  a  top  margin  of  five  lines,  you  would 
type  \  TM  5.  If  you  then  decided  to  reduce  the 
top  margin  to  four  lines,  you  would  type  the 
command  \  TM  —  1 , 

At  print  time,  any  formatting  commands 
you've  already  embedded  within  your  docu¬ 
ment  will  be  reflected  in  the  print  screen.  By 
typing  a  two-  or  three-letter  abbreviation  from 
the  formatting  table  of  values,  you  can  make 
further  changes  or  even  override  any  com¬ 
mands  you've  already  embedded.  This  setup 
makes  it  easy  to  print  multiple  copies  of  a  doc¬ 
ument,  using  a  different  format  each  time. 

Special  printing  features  are  well  sup¬ 
ported.  Underlining  can  be  either  continuous 
or  broken  between  words,  and  you  can  vary 
the  intensity  of  boldfaced  text  by  having  the 
printer  strike  the  paper  up  to  nine  additional 
times.  Proportional  spacing  is  also  possible  if 
your  printer  can  do  it. 

File  Handling.  The  file  directory  displays 
filenames  in  the  usual  PC-DOS  format  by  us¬ 
ing  eight  characters  plus  an  optional  three- 
character  extension.  Unlike  most  other  word 
processors,  however,  PeachText  allows  you  to 
list  the  Hie  directory  and  even  view  the  con- 


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tents  of  another  file  without  leaving  the  editor. 
This  feature  is  especially  handy  for  boilerplat¬ 
ing,  since  it  helps  you  locate  the  appropriate 
text  to  merge. 

When  you  finish  editing  a  document  and 
save  it  to  disk,  the  program  automatically 
makes  a  backup  copy  by  saving  the  previously 
edited  version  with  the  appended  suffix  .bak. 
You  can  also  save  your  work  without  leaving 
the  editor,  but  the  file  thus  saved  is  only  tempo¬ 
rary  and  can  be  lost  if  you're  not  careful. 

PeachText  doesn't  do  automatic  disk 
buffering,  so  your  documents  are  limited  to 
about  twenty-five  double-spaced  pages.  There 
is  a  way  to  edit  longer  documents,  however,  by 
issuing  commands  to  alternately  read  and 
write  portions  of  the  file  to  and  from  disk.  This 
shuffling  technique  is  probably  acceptable  for 
an  occasional  document  over  twenty-five 
pages,  but  you  wouldn't  want  to  do  it  every 
day. 

Document  assembly  is  definitely  Peach- 
Texts  forte.  Several  file-merging  commands 
make  it  simple  to  include  one  file  within  an¬ 
other  or  to  insert  boilerplate  paragraphs  with 
just  a  few  keystrokes.  To  boilerplate,  you  cre¬ 
ate  a  file  of  standard  paragraphs  and  assign 
each  paragraph  a  code  number  (like  A-l,  A-2, 
and  so  on).  Then,  when  you  want  to  insert  one 
of  the  paragraphs  into  a  document,  you  type  I 
and  follow  it  with  the  appropriate  filename 
and  code  number  for  the  boilerplate  text. 

You  can  also  enter  information  from  the 
keyboard  into  your  file  at  print  time.  If  you're 
sending  the  same  letter  to  several  different  peo¬ 
ple,  you  can  insert  a  Get  command  where  the 
name  and  address  go.  Every  time  the  letter 
prints,  the  program  stops  the  printer  and  waits 
for  you  to  type  in  the  appropriate  information. 

PeachText  offers  you  many  variations  in 
form-lettering.  Once  you  set  up  your  data  file, 
using  either  PeachText  itself  or  List  Manager 
(as  we'll  see  later  on),  you  have  a  powerful  set 
of  logic  commands  at  your  disposal.  These 
commands  do  take  some  getting  used  to,  how¬ 
ever,  since  they  work  a  lot  like  a  primitive  pro¬ 
gramming  language.  For  example,  if  you 
wanted  to  send  letters  only  to  those  people  in 
your  data  file  who  live  in  Chicago,  you  would 
use  the  conditional  command: 

IF  NOT  CITY  =  "Chicago" ,  END. 

Or,  when  sending  out  letters  to  overdue  ac¬ 
counts  receivable,  you  can  use  a  similar  com¬ 
mand  to  print  different  letters  based  on  how 
far  behind  each  account  is  in  its  payments. 

You  can  also  merge  WordStar,  EasyWriter, 
and  VisiCalc  files  by  using  a  set  of  accessory 
programs  (called  Access  Pak)  available  from 
Peachtree.  These  programs  translate  the  files 
into  the  proper  format  for  PeachText  or  Peach- 
Calc,  convert  all  embedded  commands  into 
their  PeachText  equivalents,  and  display  any 
unresolved  differences  on  screen. 

Spelling  Proofreader.  PeachText  5000  bases 


its  spelling  checker  on  a  dictionary  of  twenty- 
thousand  words — a  bare  minimum.  To  use  it, 
you  type  SP  from  PeachText' s  main  menu. 
From  its  own  menu.  Spelling  Proofreader  gives 
you  several  choices:  checking  a  document,  al¬ 
tering  the  dictionary,  creating  a  new  dictio¬ 
nary,  changing  the  default  settings  that 
determine  how  the  program  operates,  asking 
for  help,  or  returning  to  PeachText . 

As  the  program  proofreads  your  docu¬ 
ment,  it  provides  a  running  tally  of  the  number 
of  words  checked,  the  percentage  that  are 
unique,  and  the  number  and  percentage  that  it 
can't  match  with  words  in  its  dictionary.  You 
hit  return  to  begin  reviewing  the  unmatched 
words  individually  at  the  bottom  of  the  screen 
(not  in  context,  however).  As  you  look  at  each 
word,  you  can  either  add  it  to  the  dictionary, 
accept  it  as  correct,  or  mark  it  for  later  correc¬ 
tion.  If  you  choose  the  marking  option,  the 
program  substitutes  a  bracket  for  the  last  letter 
in  the  word.  It's  then  up  to  you  to  return  to 
PeachText  and  use  the  search  function  to  find 
all  the  marked  words  and  correct  them. 

Instead  of  reviewing  the  words  Spelling 
Proofreader  couldn't  match  with  its  dictionary 
individually,  you  can  handle  them  as  a  group. 
This  way  you  can  view  the  whole  list  at  once 
and  sometimes  make  one  decision  for  all  of 
them.  (Obviously,  you  first  have  to  be  sure 
that  each  word  requires  the  same  action.)  For 
example,  if  all  the  words  in  the  list  are  mis¬ 
spelled,  you  can  have  them  all  marked  with 
brackets.  If  they  are  not  misspelled  but  just  not 
in  the  dictionary,  you  can  add  them  collec¬ 
tively  to  Spelling  Proofreader's  dictionary. 

The  amount  of  space  on  the  Spelling  Proof¬ 
reader  disk  limits  the  number  of  words  you  can 
add  to  the  dictionary;  with  a  hard  disk,  this 
number  is  just  about  limitless.  You  can  also 
create  supplemental  dictionaries  for  profes¬ 
sional  or  technical  terms  that  aren't  in  the  main 
dictionary.  By  changing  the  values  in  the  de¬ 
fault  table,  you  can  specify  which  dictionary  is 
used  to  proof  your  documents. 

Spelling  Proofreader  does  have  several 
shortcomings.  Many  spelling  checkers  can  go 
into  your  document  file  and  automatically  find 
and  change  misspelled  words  once  you  supply 
the  correct  spelling.  Some  even  suggest  the  cor¬ 
rect  spelling  for  unmatched  words.  Spelling 
Proofreader  does  neither.  Having  to  return  to 
the  word  processor  to  correct  all  the  flagged 
words — not  to  mention  looking  up  all  the  cor¬ 
rect  spellings  in  a  print  dictionary — slows  you 
down  considerably.  A  minor  irritation  is  that 
PeachText's  embedded  commands  for  text  for¬ 
matting  aren't  in  Spelling  Proofreader's  dic¬ 
tionary  and  will  be  flagged  unless  you  add 
them  to  the  dictionary  yourself. 

Random  House  Electronic  Thesaurus .  The 
Random  House  Thesaurus ,  Peachtree  style, 
gives  you  access  to  forty-four  hundred  key¬ 
words  and  slightly  more  than  twenty-six  thou¬ 


sand  synonyms— all  this  without  your  ever 
having  to  leave  the  keyboard  to  thumb 
through  your  pocket  thesaurus. 

Using  the  thesaurus  is  as  simple  as  placing 
the  cursor  over  the  word  you  want  help  with, 
swapping  disks  (if  you  don't  have  a  copy  of  the 
thesaurus  on  your  PeachText  disk),  and  press¬ 
ing  F10.  On  the  lower  portion  of  the  screen, 
separated  from  the  main  text  by  dashes,  a  list 
of  synonyms  appears,  including  the  original 
word  marked  with  brackets.  You  use  the  right 
arrow  key  to  position  the  brackets  around  the 
synonym  that  you  want  to  use  and  then  hit  re¬ 
turn:  The  new  word  will  replace  the  old  one 
and  will  be  matched  for  case.  If  you  decide  not 
to  use  any  of  the  synonyms  listed,  you  press 
escape  to  return  to  editing. 

This  procedure  is  straightforward  enough 
— unless  the  word  you  want  to  replace  isn't 
among  the  program's  keywords.  Unfortu¬ 
nately,  this  is  a  common  occurrence,  since  the 
keywords  are  mostly  root  forms,  not  plurals 
or  past  tenses.  For  example,  if  you're  looking 
for  a  synonym  for  earned ,  the  program  will  tell 
you  it  can't  find  earned  and  will  display  alpha¬ 
betically  neighboring  words  such  as  earn .  If 
you  were  using  your  pocket  thesaurus,  you'd 
just  look  at  the  synonyms  for  earn  and  add  ed 
to  the  one  you  wanted  to  use.  With  the  RH 
Electronic  Thesaurus,  looking  up  synonyms 
for  the  alternative  word  (in  this  case,  earn)  isn't 
so  easy:  You  have  to  press  escape  to  go  back  to 
the  editor,  change  the  word  to  earn  in  the  main 
text,  put  the  cursor  back  at  the  beginning  of  the 
word,  and  press  F10  again  to  reactivate  the  the¬ 
saurus. 

Interestingly,  WordStar's  version  of  the  RH 
Electronic  Thesaurus  that  runs  under  CP/M 
doesn't  share  this  problem  but  lets  you  look  up 
synonyms  for  the  alternative  words  without 
your  having  to  insert  them  in  your  text. 

List  Manager.  List  Manager  (available  sepa¬ 
rately  under  the  IBM  logo)  primarily  main¬ 
tains  address  files;  it's  also  powerful  enough  to 
use  for  simple  database  management. 

To  create  a  data  file,  you  can  define  as  many 
as  fourteen  fields  per  record,  with  up  to  509 
characters  in  each  field.  This  process  is  simple: 
The  program  supplies  a  blank  form  with  the 
fields  numbered  from  one  to  fourteen  along  the 
left  side  of  the  screen.  By  using  the  special  func¬ 
tion  keys  to  move  between  the  fields,  you  indi¬ 
cate  what  each  field  is  to  contain  by  typing 
name,  address,  and  so  on,  followed  by  the 
number  of  characters  you  want  reserved  for 
that  field  (for  example,  thirty  characters  for 
name). 

If  you  decide  to  change  one  or  more  of  the 
fields  or  add  a  new  field  for  additional  infor¬ 
mation,  you  can  easily  redefine  the  existing 
file.  You  can  also  preset  values  that  are  com¬ 
mon  to  each  record  and  save  yourself  a  lot  of 
typing.  For  example,  if  you  were  assembling  a 
list  of  club  members  from  the  same  city,  you 


for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


51 


could  have  the  program  automatically  fill  in 
the  dty  and  state  portion  of  the  address. 

When  you  define  the  data  file,  you  can  indi¬ 
cate  how  you  want  it  indexed.  For  instance,  if 
you  know  that  you'll  usually  be  looking  up  rec- 
ordsvby  last  name,  you  would  specify  that 
field  as  the  primary  index.  In  addition,  you  can 
define  two  cross  indexes,  like  Zip  Code  or  mem¬ 
bership  number,  to  give  you  additional  ways 
to  gain  access  to  individual  records  quickly. 
Since  the  program  catalogues  the  file  on  the  ba¬ 
sis  of  this  information,  you  don't  have  to  wait 
for  it  to  do  a  sort  every  time  you  look  some¬ 
thing  up  or  request  a  printout. 

List  Manager  gives  you  a  lot  of  flexibility  in 
designing  the  format  for  printing  your  data 
file.  You  can  define  up  to  fourteen  different  for¬ 
mats  for  each  file,  so  it's  easy  to  get  varying 
formats  for  different  uses  (such  as  mailing  la¬ 
bels  versus  printed  membership  lists).  There's 
also  a  test  print  feature  that's  especially  nice 
when  you're  printing  mailing  labels.  Once 
you've  set  your  format,  you  can  do  a  quick 
print  of  one  or  two  records  to  make  sure  that 
your  settings  are  okay  before  carving  them  in 
stone. 

But  List  Manager  can  do  more  than  just 
manage  your  mailing  lists.  With  its  built-in 
logic  commands,  it  can  act  like  a  database 
management  system.  For  instance,  you  could 


have  it  find  all  the  members  in  your  club  who 
have  an  interest  in  bird  watching  and  have 
contributed  over  $100  in  the  last  year.  This  in¬ 
formation  could  then  be  used  with  PeachText 
to  generate  form  letters  requesting  donations 
for  a  new  bird  sanctuary. 

PeachCalc.  PeachText  5000's  fifth  slice  is 
PeachCalc ,  a  spreadsheet  program.  We  didn't 
evaluate  this  program  in-depth — after  all, 
we're  word  processors,  not  sheet  spreaders— 
but,  briefly  the  program's  design  is  similar  to 
VisiCalc  and  its  clones.  Worksheets  can  have 
up  to  254  rows  and  sixty-three  columns,  with 
variable  column  widths  from  0  to  126  charac¬ 
ters,  and  can  occupy  a  maximum  of  256K  of 
RAM.  You  can  add,  subtract,  multiply,  and  di¬ 
vide,  as  well  as  find  partial  sums,  minimums, 
maximums,  square  roots,  and  trig  functions. 

To  enter  commands,  you  press  /  and  a 
menu  of  command  choices  (each  represented 
by  a  single  letter)  appears.  To  load  a  work¬ 
sheet,  for  instance,  you  type  /L  (sound  famil¬ 
iar?)  If  you  need  help,  you  can  get  it  from  any 
point  in  the  program  by  pressing  the  question 
mark  key.  In  addition,  PeachTree  offers  a  sepa¬ 
rate  graphics  program  that  allows  you  to 
create  eleven  different  types  of  graphs  from 
PeachCalc  data. 

Documentation  and  Support.  PeachText 
5000s  documentation  consists  of  two  spiral- 


bound  notebooks,  one  a  207-page  tutorial  and 
the  other  a  224-page  reference  manual.  Peach¬ 
tree  hasn't  wasted  any  paper — the  top  and  bot¬ 
tom  margins  are  narrow  and  the  print  is  tightly 
packed  on  the  page. 

The  tutorials  cover  each  of  the  five  pro¬ 
grams  thoroughly,  and,  what's  more,  they're 
even  fun  to  do.  To  learn  the  word  processor, 
you  help  Abraham  Lincoln  edit  the  Gettysburg 
Address.  (He  starts  out  with,  'It's  great  to  be 
here  in  Pennsylvania.  .  ..")  Then,  to  learn 
boilerplating,  you  help  him  answer  his  mail  by 
sending  canned  responses  to  schoolchildren, 
influential  supporters,  and  threatening  citi¬ 
zens.  Each  tutorial  gives  you  sample  files  on 
disk  so  you  don't  waste  time  typing  in  long  seg¬ 
ments  of  text.  Even  so,  plan  on  spending  sev¬ 
eral  days  to  go  through  all  five  programs. 

The  reference  manual  is  filled  with  detailed 
information,  and  even  helpful  hints,  such  as 
what  to  do  about  paper  slippage  in  your 
printer — if  you  could  only  find  what  you're 
looking  for  when  you  needed  it.  The  reference 
manual  has  no  index  and  only  the  skeleton  of  a 
table  of  contents.  Worse  yet,  within  chapters, 
information  is  organized  alphabetically  in¬ 
stead  of  by  subject.  As  a  result,  it's  hard  to  get 
an  understanding  of  just  what  the  program  will 
and  won't  do.  In  fact,  some  useful  commands 
(the  conditional  paging  command,  for  one)  are 
so  well  hidden  that  you  sometimes  find  out 
about  them  by  accident,  usually  when  you're 
looking  for  something  else. 

Peachtree  provides  free  program  support 
for  thirty  days  but  charges  $96  per  year  there¬ 
after  for  access  to  a  hot  line,  user  newsletter, 
bug  fixes,  and  upgrades  at  a  nominal  cost.  The 
disks  aren't  copy-protected. 

Ease  of  Learning.  You  won't  have  any  trou¬ 
ble  learning  any  of  these  five  programs;  they're 
all  menu-driven  and  provide  plenty  of  on¬ 
screen  help.  Still,  you  shouldn't  expect  to  mas¬ 
ter  all  five  of  them  at  one  sitting.  If  you've  got 
the  time,  the  best  strategy  is  to  go  through  the 
exercises  in  each  of  the  tutorials.  You  won't 
learn  everything  there  is  to  know  about  the 
package,  but  you'll  get  a  good  overview  of  it. 

Summary.  In  an  office  environment  where 
the  pc  is  used  for  a  variety  of  applications, 
PeachText  5000  can  give  a  lot  of  mileage  for 
your  dollar.  The  word  processor  itself  is  proba¬ 
bly  best  suited  for  form  letters  and  other  short- 
to  medium-length  documents. 

System  Requirements.  128K  of  RAM  and 
two  disk  drives.  Printers  supported  include  C. 
Itoh  Starwriter,  Diablo  630,  NEC  (3550,  5510, 
5520,  5530,  7710,  7715),  Qume  Sprint  (9  and 
11).  A 


PeachText  5000  $395 
Peachtree  Software 
3445  Peachtree  Road,  N.E. 
Atlanta,  Georgia  30326 
(404)  239-2045 


Multi-tasking... 

Multi-user... 

MultiLink! 

MultiLink  turns  PC -DOS  (or  MS-DOS)  into  a  multi-user,  multi-tasking 
system  without  expensive  hardware.  If  you  have  at  least  96K  of  memory, 
MultiLink  is  all  you  need  for  concurrent  processing. 

If  you  also  have  serial  ports  and  appropriate  terminals,  you  can  station  up  to  8 
additional  users  running  normal  DOS  applications. 

MultiLink  permits  task  synchronization,  prioritization,  disk  and  file  sharing, 
and  other  features  geared  to  development  of  multi-user  software. 

Also  included  is  a  full-featured  bulletin  board  system  allowing  dial-in  access 
which  runs  as  an  independent  task. 

On  the  market  since  February  of  '83,  MultiLink  supports  the  IBM  PC  or  XT 
running  either  PC-DOS  1 . 1  or  2.0,  and  will  handle  future  releases  as  required. 
Also  supported  are  the  Columbia,  Corona,  and  Eagle  1600  series,  with  others 
under  development. 

Available  now  at  $225.  Evaluation  version  for  the  faint  of  heart.  Visa,  MC 
accepted.  Dealer  inquiries  invited. 

THE  SOFTWARE  LINK,  INC. 

6700  23-B  ROSWELL  RD.  •  ATLANTA.  GA  30328  •  404/255-1254 


52 


SOftcilk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


Introducing  UItraFile!M 

the  most  flexible  management  tool 
you’ll  ever  need. 


DIMENSIONS  TO  YOll  OTHER 
SOFTWARE  PROGRAMS, 

We  taught  UltraFile  to  talk  to  the  most 
popular  word  processing  and  spread¬ 
sheet  programs:  Vis  1C  ale,  WordStar, 
SuperCalc,  FCM,  Volkswriter  and  Easy 
Writer.  And  that  means  you  get  the  best 
of  both  worlds. 

You  can  pull  information  from  your 
'Tile"  and  put  it  into  a  letter  or  use  it  to 
do  more  complex  calculations  on  a 
spreadsheet.  And  vice  versa. 


Have  you  ever 

misplaced  an  important 

piece  of  paper?  Or  had  to  work  late  just 

to  put  together  a  report  for  tomorrow 

morning's  meeting?  Or  felt  that  you 

can't  get  at  all  the  facts  and  figures  that 

surround  you? 

It  can  be  very  frustrating.  But  it 
doesn't  have  to  be. 

Whether  you  need  to  process  large 
amounts  of  information  in  business  or 
just  want  to  catalog  your  home  library, 
UltraFile  can  do  it  for  you.  Because  it's 
as  powerful  as  it  is  easy  to  use. 

UltraFile  is  the  best  reason  there  is  for 
owning  a  computer. 

SAVE  COUNTLESS  HOURS, 

UltraFile  can  manage  and  organize  your 
information  in  hundreds  of  differ¬ 
ent  ways,  no  matter  what  your  need. 
Here's  one  example: 

You  as  sales  manager  know  sales  can 
be  increased  dramatically  by  concen¬ 
trating  on  cities  that  have  a  population 
of  at  least  500,000  or  an  average  income 
of  at  least  19,500.  But  which  cities  fit 
into  those  categories? 

UltraFile  can  tell  you.  Instantly. 
UltraFile  can  pull  the  data  out  of  a  file 
of  information  and  do  calculations  and 
even  make  projections. 

Then,  if  you'd  like  to  see  the  informa¬ 
tion  on  your  screen  or  want  a  printout, 
just  tell  UltraFile  in  plain  English  and 
it  will  do  it  for  you. 

what's  more,  with  UltraFile  you  can 


V 

\ 


make  revisioas  at  any  point 
without  having  to  start  all  over. 


TYING  13  ALL  TOGETHER. 

UltraFile  has  a  very  easy-to-use,  yet 
sophisticated  and  accurate  “graphing" 
system.  And  it's  fun,  too. 

Suppose  you'd  like  to  review  informa¬ 
tion  in  graphic  form  to  make  a  visual 
comparison.  Just  “point"  to  the  kind 
of  graph  you  want  to  see,  whether 
it's  3' dimensional  bar,  circle  or  area 
graph  (to  name  a  few),  and  UltraFile 
does  the  rest. 

One  of  the  best  parts  about  UltraFile 's 
graphing  capabilities  is  the  ability  to 
actually  do  calculations  right  on  the 
screen.  In  seconds,  just  pinpoint  a  spot 
anywhere  on  the  graph,  press  a  button 
and  you  automatically  get  a  numerical 
readout.  It's  that  easy. 


LaiL 


The  point  is,  UltraFile  can  easily  and 
efficiently  solve  your  information 
problems. 

In  fact,  UltraFile  gives  you  dozens  of 
good  reasons  for  owning  a  computer. 

So  stop  by  your  Continental  Software 
dealer.  Or  call  us  today  to  find  out 
more  about  UltraFile  and  how  it  will 
help  you  get  a  grip  on  information. 

UltraFile  Is  available  for  the  IBM 
PC  and  IBM  PC  XT, 

UltraFile  and  FCM  are  registered  trademarks  of  Continental 
Software  IBM  PC/ PC  XT  are  registered  trademarks  of 
international  Business  Machines  Corp.  VisiCale  is  a  regis¬ 
tered  trademark  of  Visi  Corp  Personal  Software.  WordSiar 
ss  a  registered  trademark  of  MicroPro  In  ter  national.  Inc. 
SuperCalc  is  a  registered  trademark  of  Sorcim  Corp.  Easy 
Writer  is  a  registered  trademark  of  information  Unlimited 
Software.  Inc.  Volkswriter  is  a  trademark  of  Lifetrec 
Software,  Inc. 

ULTRAFILE:  Get  a  grip  on  information. 

Continental 

Software 

A  division  of  Arrays,  Inc. 

11223  South  Hindry  Avenue 
Los  Angeles,  California  90045 
213/417-8031,  213/417  3003 


gram  can  recognize  that  they 
have  occurred  by  using  the  err 
and  erl  functions.  Still,  every¬ 
thing  considered,  catching  al¬ 
most  all  the  errors  is  not  as  good 
as  catching  all  the  errors.  That's 
where  this  month's  subroutine 
comes  in. 

Our  program.  Validate,  is 
designed  to  edit  a  filename  that 
will  be  used  in  a  Basic  program. 
It  catches  all  the  previously 
mentioned  errors  as  well  as  ad¬ 
ding  a  couple  of  extra  touches  it¬ 
self.  Validate  is  an  assembly 
language  subroutine  that's  built 
from  data  statements  in  a  Basic 
program. 


As  you  may  have  discov-  that  might  be  used  in  a  Basic 

ered,  Basic  can  be  very  unfor-  program,  with  the  results  corre- 

giving  when  it  comes  to 
handling  filenames.  If,  for  in¬ 
stance,  you  specify  an  invalid 
drive  letter  in  a  Basic  statement, 
the  system  defaults  to  the  last 
active  drive.  If  that  isn't  what 
you  intended  to  do,  the  result¬ 
ing  unnecessary  action  (access¬ 
ing  the  wrong  drive),  will  cause 
a  "File  not  found"  message  to  be 
issued. 

Basic  is  capable  of  handling 
several  types  of  filename  errors. 

Here  are  several  examples  of 
correct  and  erroneous  filenames 


As  you  can  see,  Basic  traps 
just  about  all  these  filename  er¬ 
rors,  and  consequently  a  pro- 


Result 


B:  NAME!,  EXT 


File  is  opened  and  accessed  normally 
Error  message  53 — File  not  found 
Error  message  52— Bad  file  number 
Basic  accesses  last  active  drive 
Error  message  53 — File  not  found 
(drive  is  not  even  searched) 


B :  ABCDEFGHI .  EXT 

X:NAME2.EXT 

B:[XXX.XX 


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rearing  Validate.  The  program  shown  in  figure  1  builds 
the  Validate  subroutine.  It  begins  by  pointing  to  Basic's 
data  segment  with  the  def  seg  in  line  130.  Next,  the 
string  Subrt$  is  defined  as  a  length  of  160  characters 
and  is  set  to  blanks.  This  is  where  the  subroutine  re¬ 
sides.  Line  150  retrieves  the  string  descriptor  for 
Subrt$,  and  line  160  finds  the  actual  memory  location  of  the  contents  of 
the  string. 

Since  this  subroutine  is  longer  than  those  weve  worked  with  previ¬ 
ously  it  is  designed  in  such  a  way  that,  if  you  make  a  mistake  while 

10 '  *****  build  validate  subroutine  ***** 

20' 

30  '  This  subroutine  will  validate 
40  *  file  names  input  on  the  screen 

50 ' 

60 '  WRITTEN  BY  HOWARD  GLOSSER 
70 ' 

80CLS 

90  PRINT  'Creating  VALIDATE  Subroutine.  . 

100' 

110 '  **  THIS  SETS  UP  STRING  LOCATION  FOR  SUBROUTINE 
120' 

130  DEF  SEG 

140  SUBRT$ = STRING$(160,32) 

150  SUBLC  %  -  VARPTR(SUBRTS) 

160  VALID =PEEK(SUBLC%  +  1)  +  PEEK(SUBLC%  +  2)  *  256 

170  LCN= VALID 

180' 

190 '  THIS  BUILDS  THE  SUBROUTINE 
200' 

210  LINENO%=450 
220  FOR  STMT  -  1  TO  20 
230  FOR  MEM  -  1  TO  8 
240  READ  DT% 

250  POKE  LCN,DT% 

260  CHECKSUM  %  =  CHECKSUM  %  +  DT% 

270  LCN^LCN  +  1 

280  NEXT 

290  READ  DT% 

300  IF  CHECKSUMS  <  >  DT%  THEN  410 
310  UNENO%=UNENO%  +  10 
320  CHECKSUM%  —  0 
330  NEXT 
340' 

350 '  **  THIS  SAVES  THE  SUBROUTINE 
360' 

370  BSAVE  '  VALIDATE ' , VALID, &H9C 

380  PRINT  'VALIDATE  SUBROUTINE  CREATED' 

390  END 
400' 

410  BEEP: PRINT  'ERROR  in  DATA  STATEMENT  -  Check  line  '  UNENO%:END 

420 '  k  >■/  ■ 

430 '  ’*  DATA  STATEMENTS  TO  BUILD  SUBROUTINE 
440' 

450  DATA  &HEB,&H03,&H90/&H00,&H00,&H55,&H8B,&HEC,&H034A 
460  DATA  &H8B,&H5E,&H0A,&HSB,&H77,&H01,&H8B,&H5E,&H02DF 
470  DATA  &H08,&H8B,&H7F,&H01,&H2E,&HC7,&H06,&H03,&H0211 
480  DATA  &H01 , &H00,  &H00, &H56, &HB0,  &H0F,  &HB4,  &H29,&H01  F3 
490  DATA  &HCD,  &H21,  &H5E,  &H3C,&H01,  &H75,  &H07,  &H2E,&H0233 
500  DATA  &H81 , &H0E, &H03 , &H01 , & H01,  &H00,  &H80,  &H7C,  &H0190 
510  DATA  &H01,&H3A,&H75,&H0E,&H83,&HC6,&H02,&H3C,&H0245 
520  DATA  &HFF,&H75,&H07,&H2E,&H81,&H0E,&H03,&H01,&H023C 
530  DATA  &H02,&H00,&H80,&H7D,&H01,&H20,&H75,&H0A,&H019F 
540  DATA  &H2E,&H81,&H0E,&H03,&H01,&H04,&H00,&HEB,&H01B0 
550  DATA  &H3E,  &H90, &HB0, &H2E,  &HB9, &H09,  &H00, &H38,  &H02 A6 
560  DATA  &H04,&H74,&H12,&H80,&H3C,&H20,&H74,&H28,&H0202 
570  DATA  &H46,&HE2,&HF4,&H2E,&H81,&H0E,&H03,&H01,&H02DD 
580  DATA  &H04,&H00,&HEB,&H23,&H90,&H46,&HB0,&H20,&H02B8 
590  DATA  &HB9, &H04,  &H00, &H38, &H04,  &H74,  &H18,  &H38,  &H01BD 
600  DATA  &H04,  &H 74,  &H14,  &H46, &HE2, &HF9,  &H2E,  &H81 ,  &H035C 
610  DATA  &H0E,  &H03,  &H01,  &H04,  &H00, &HEB,&H08, &H90, &H0199 
620  DATA  &H2E,  &H81, &H0E, &H03 , &H01,  &H08, &H00, &H8B,  &H0154 
630  DATA  &H7E,&H06,&H2E,&HA1,&H03,&H01,&H89,&H05,&H01E5 
640  DATA  &H5D,  &HC A, &H06, &H00,  &H00,  &H00,  &H00, &H00,  &H012D 

Figure  1. 


typing  the  data  statements  (a  tedious  chore  to  be  sure),  the  program 
will  tell  you  which  line  contains  the  typo.  This  will  spare  you  the  hassle 
of  searching  through  twenty  lines  for  an  elusive  error.  You'll  note  that 
at  the  last  entry  in  each  data  statement  is  a  two-byte  hex  value.  This 
value  is  the  checksum  (accumulated  sum)  of  the  hex  characters  located 
on  each  data  line.  As  the  values  are  poked  into  memory,  they  are  added 
to  an  accumulator.  Every  ninth  time,  this  value  is  compared  with  the 
checksum.  If  the  values  don't  match,  a  tone  sounds,  the  message  con¬ 
tained  in  line  410  is  displayed,  and  the  program  stops. 

The  code  starting  at  line  210  keeps  track  of  the  line  numbers  of  your 
data  statements.  The  variable  Lineno%  has  an  initial  value  of  450, 
which  is  the  line  number  of  the  first  data  statement.  This  value  then  is 
incremented  by  10  as  each  data  line  is  read.  This  is  how  the  program 
knows  which  line  contains  a  data  error. 

If  the  checksum  balances  for  each  line  of  data,  line  370  saves  the 
subroutine  to  disk  under  the  name  Validate.  Once  it's  saved,  the  sub¬ 
routine  can  be  used  by  any  Basic  program.  Now  let's  see  what  it  can  do. 

utting  Validate  to  Work.  The  program  in  figure  2  dem¬ 
onstrates  the  Validate  subroutine.  Line  60's  def  seg 
points  to  Basic's  data  segment.  Following  this,  string 
Subrt$  is  defined  again.  Note,  however,  that  the  string 
is  only  156  characters  long  here,  as  opposed  to  160  in 
figure  1.  The  difference  in  length  is  due  to  the  checksum 
used  to  build  the  subroutine.  For  the  checksum  to  work  properly,  the 
data  lines  have  to  be  of  equal  length.  Consequently,  some  fill  values 
(&H00)  are  added  to  the  last  data  line  in  figure  1.  Since  these  are  of  no 
use  in  the  actual  operation  of  the  program,  only  156  (&H9C)  of  the  160 
bytes  are  actually  saved  on  disk  with  the  bsave. 

Line  80  retrieves  the  string  descriptor  for  Subrt$,  and  line  90  does  a 
gosub  to  the  routine  at  line  400.  This  routine  acquires  the  actual  loca- 

10 '  *****  THIS  PROGRAM  DEMONSTRATES  THE  VALIDATE  SUBROUTINE  ***** 

20' 

30 '  V**  STORE  VALIDATE  SUBROUTINE  IN  STRING 
40' 

50  KEY  OFF 
60  DEF  SEG 

70  SUBRTS = STRING$( 1 56,32) 

80  SUBLC  %  =VARPTR(SUBRT$) 

90  GOSUB  400  '  get  subroutine  location 

100  BLGAD  *  VALIDATE ' ,  VALID 
110' 

120'  **  ASK  FOR  FILE  NAME 
130' 

140  CLS 

150  WORKS =STRING$(16,32) 

160  RETCD%  — 0:ERRCD%  =0 

170  LOCATE  1,15:PRINT  '***  DEMONSTRATE  VALIDATE  SUBROUTINE  **** 

180  LOCATE  3,10:INPUT  'Filename  is  *,NM$ :  NM$  =  NMS  +  *  ' 

190  ' 

200  '  **  CALL  TO  VALIDATE  SUBROUTINE 
210' 

220  GOSUB  390 

230  CALL  VALID  (NM$,WORK$,RETCD%) 

240' 

250'  **  DISPLAY  RESULT  OF  VALIDATE 
260' 

270  LOCATE  5,1 

280  PRINT  'Result  of  VALIDATE  is.  .  .':PRINT 

290  IF  (RETCD%  AND  1)  =  1  THEN  PRINT  *  Code  1  -  Global  name' 

300  IF  (RETCD%  AND  2)  -  2  THEN  PRINT  *  Code  2-  Invalid  drive':ERRCD%  *1 

310  IF  (RETCD%  AND  4)  =  4  THEN  PRINT  ‘  Code  4  -  Invalid  filename ':ERRCD%  =1 

320  IF  (RETCD%  AND  8)  -  8  THEN  PRINT  v  Code  8  -  No  extension' 

330  IF  ERRCD%=0  THEN  PRINT  SPC(12)  'Filename  checks  out  ok!' 

340  IF  ERRCD%  =  0  THEN  SOUND  500,1  :SOUND  400,1  ELSE  SOUND  50;7 
350  PRINT:PRINT  'Press  SPACE  BAR  to  continue  or  (S)  to  Stop  ' 

360  CN$= HMKEY$:IF  CN$="  THEN  360 
370  IF  CN$=  'S'  OR  CN$=  's'  THEN  END 
380  GOTO  140 
390' 

400 '  *  *  RETRIEVE  LOCATION  OF  SUBROUTINE 
410' 

420  VALID ~PEEK(SUBLC%  +  1)  +  PEEK{SUBLC%  +  2)  *  256 
430  RETURN 

Figure  2. 


58 


softcilk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


25  Mb  the  hard  way. 


25  Mb  the  Rana  way. 


don  of  Subrt$,  As  we  learned  last  month,  this  location  is  subject  to 
change  without  notice  if  Basic  decides  to  do  housedeaning.  Therefore, 
to  assure  that  the  current  location  of  the  subroutine  always  is  known, 
the  routine  on  line  400  is  run  prior  to  each  call  to  Validate.  The  subrou- 
tine  is  actually  loaded  by  the  blood  in  line  100. 

A  work  area,  Work$,  with  a  length  of  sixteen  characters,  is  defined 
on  line  ISO.  This  area  is  used  internally  by  the  subroutine  and  will  be 
explained  fully  in  the  assembly  section  of  this  article.  One  other  varia¬ 
ble  necessary  to  the  operation  of  Validate  is  Retcd  %,  an  integer  varia¬ 
ble  defined  in  line  160.  After  a  call  to  the  subroutine,  Re  ted  %  may 
contain  any  combination  of  the  following  return  codes. 

Value  Definition 

0  None  of  the  below  conditions  occurred 

1  Filename  contains  global  characters  1?  or  * ) 

2  Invalid  drive  letter 

4  Invalid  filename 

8  Filename  has  no  extension 

Return  codes  2  and  4  are  error  messages,  whereas  return  codes  1  and 
8  are  the  "extra  touch"  mentioned  earlier  Sometimes  you  want  to  know 
if  a  filename  contains  global  characters  or  if  no  extension  has  been  spec¬ 
ified  so  you  can  supply  your  own  default.  Validate  will  give  you  all 
this  information  via  Retcd  %. 

he  and  Operator,  Since  the  value  in  the  return  code 
could  be  any  combination  of  the  above,  we  need  to 
have  a  way  to  separate  them  logically.  Lines  290 
through  320  use  the  and  operator  to  do  this.  The  and 
operator  works  at  the  bit  level  of  a  number,  and  here 
it's  used  to  mask  out  all  but  the  bit  currently  being 


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checked  in  Retcd  % .  Any  bit  that  is  unded  with  a  0  will  result  in  a  0,  and 
any  bit  rmded  with  a  1  keeps  its  previous  value.  The  following  example 
illustrates  this. 

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resulting  in  B  0000  1000 

Thus  if  the  value  of  Retcd  %  is  9  (indicating  a  global  name  and  no  exten¬ 
sion),  this  could  be  broken  down  into  8  and  1  by  adding  Retcd  %  with 
those  values  respectively.  If  the  filename  checks  out  all  right  after  the 
subroutine  call,  the  message  on  line  330  is  displayed. 

This  demonstration  can  run  as  many  times  as  desired,  substituting  a 
different  drive  letter  and  filename  combination  each  time,  just  for  start¬ 
ers,  try  using  the  filenames  listed  at  the  start  of  this  article  and  see  what 
results  you  get. 

In  the  demonstration,  the  results  of  the  validation  are  simply  dis¬ 
played  on  screen.  In  a  real  application,  however,  it  would  be  up  to  you 
to  decide  how  to  handle  the  information  in  Retcd  %.  Also,  it  probably 
would  be  best  to  use  the  Ckkey  subroutine  from  the  April  1983  So f talk 
(page  125)  in  place  of  the  input  statement  in  line  1B0.  This  would  afford 
more  control  in  the  entering  of  the  filename  before  you  called  Validate 
to  check  it. 

Now  that  the  demonstration  is  behind  us,  let's  take  a  peek  at  the 
assembly  routine  itself. 

arsing  a  Filename.  The  fisting  in  figure  3  is  the  com¬ 
mented  assembly  program.  Since  it's  fairly  self-explan¬ 
atory,  well  just  cover  the  highlights. 

To  start  with,  the  filename  and  work  area  are  re¬ 
trieved  from  the  stack,  a  two-byte  variable  Retcd  is  set 
up  to  hold  the  return  code,  and  the  AX  register  is  set  up 
to  do  a  parse  function  call  (29H),  The  word  "parse"  basically  means  "to 
break  something  down  into  its  parts."  Before  the  program  does  this 
call,  the  ESiSl  registers  must  be  pointing  at  the  line  to  be  parsed  (in  this 
case  the  filename)  and  the  ES:DI  registers  must  point  at  an  area  where 
an  unopened  file  control  block  (FCB)  will  be  located.  This  is  where  the 
work  area  (WorkS)  comes  in  and  the  FCB  is  built.  Setting  register  AL  to 
OFH  indicates  to  the  system  that  the  drive,  filename,  and  extension  sup¬ 
plied  in  the  filename  are  to  be  placed  into  the  FCB  area. 

After  the  interrupt  21H  in  line  30,  ES:DI  points  to  this  FCB.  By  ex¬ 
amining  register  AL  we  leam  the  following? 

If  AL  is  01,  the  filename  contains  global  characters 
If  AL  is  FFy  the  drive  letter  is  invalid 

In  addition,  if  the  filename  is  invalid,  E5:D1  + 1  will  contain  a  blank.  So 
far  we've  covered  three  of  the  four  return  codes.  But  there's  more  work 
to  do.  Lines  47  through  71  check  the  filename  for  proper  length  and 
extension.  Surprisingly,  it  appears  that  the  parse  call  doesn't  do  this,  if  a 
filename  of  ABCDEFGHIJKL.EXT12345  is  given,  which  is  obviously 
invalid,  the  result  of  the  parse  will  be  a  filename  in  the  FCB  of  ABC- 
DEFGH.EXT.  In  other  words,  after  the  first  eight  characters  are  taken, 
it  moves  over  to  the  period  and  takes  the  next  three.  However,  the 
Validate  subroutine  catches  this  type  of  error  and  sets  the  appropriate 
value  in  the  return  code. 

If  no  extension  is  found  after  the  filename  is  scanned,  the  return  code 
is  set  to  8.  Note  that  for  all  these  return  codes  the  value  is  not  moved 
into  the  return  code?  instead,  the  return  code  is  ored  with  the  value. 
This  sets  the  appropriate  bit  to  1  without  altering  the  state  of  the  other 
bits  in  the  byte.  Finally,  when  the  subroutine  is  finished,  the  return-code 
value  is  placed  in  Retcd  %,  and  a  far  return  to  Basic  is  done. 

That's  it  for  the  Validate  subroutine.  It's  yours  to  use  and  modify  to 
fit  your  needs.  In  the  next  Basic /Assembly  Line:  a  subroutine  to  access 
a  disk's  directory.  *- 


60 


soft Gt k  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


Introducing  the  First  2.5  Mb 
Minifloppy  Drive. 


Isn't  it  just  like  Rana  Systems  to  introduce  a 
floppy  disk  drive  for  the  IBM®  with  the  mass 
storage  benefits  of  a  hard  disk,  plus  the 
floppy's  strength  of  removable  media.  The  first 
minifloppy  that  stores  an  incredible  2.5  mega¬ 
bytes  on  a  single  diskette.  Imagine,  storing  a 
word  processor,  a  spelling  checker,  mailing  list, 
and  dictionary  on  one  floppy.  With  megabytes 
to  spare, 

Rana's  new  drive  needs  only  10  floppies  to 
give  you  all  the  capacity  of  five  5-megabyte 
hard  disks.  And  that’s  not  the  limit.  In  fact,  there 
is  no  limit.  Like  any  floppy  with  its  removable 
media,  you  can  use  diskette  after  diskette  to 
increase  your  storage.  Our  expanded  capacity 
disk  drive  not  only  acts  like  a  hard  disk,  it  also 
serves  as  an  ideal  back-up  for  one. 

And  that’s  just  the  beginning,  because 
Rana's  drive  introduces  totally  new  “closed 
loop  servo"  minifloppy  technology,  making  the 
drive  insensitive  to  temperature  or  humidity. 
Rana's  controller  card  can  be  used  with  stan¬ 
dard  internal  drives  also,  so  you  don't  have  to 


use  an  additional  slot.  Our  drive  comes  with  its 
own  power  supply,  software  enhancements  for 
PC-DOS  2.0  and  1.1,  and  CP/M-86®  and  a  box 
of  diskettes.  Everything  you'll  need  to  make 
your  IBM  operate  to  its  maximum  potential. 


The  new  2.5  megabyte  minifloppy  drive, 
available  first  for  the  IBM®  PC  and  XT  and  soon 
for  the  Apple®  It’s  Rana’s  latest  proof  that  to 
stay  a  step  ahead,  you've  got  to  lead  the  way, 


Always  a  step  ahead. 

RanaSystems 


Sr+ee‘  CASiTi"  2i3‘7G9-54B-  PO’  oe&er formation  ca<1  tW  T-B00'J2*-22Q7  m  California  only  can  1-800-262- 122’'  Source  Mjmpe*  ‘CT>65d  A,-a 

zrm ;  r  v  r  ]  d  ‘  'e  dea.e*s  See  us  at  Ccmtie*  Booth  * 3 26-42 7 

5  5V  =  a  -eg  t-s:;*— e*  ora  S..s  Macn-re*  tnc  S  CP  M-86  3  re^ste^ o*  D^itai  Research  §  Apple  -ea  reg> siens.-j  iraaemgr*  Apnie  C •-  z 


1 i  Ul'jUj  f ‘HflL  i 


TKiSolver  does  for  equations 
what  word  processing  did  for 
words.  The  first  thing  you  should 
know  about  the  TKiSolver'"  program  is 
that  it  is  not  a  spreadsheet.  Instead,  it 
does  something  completely  unheard 
of  (until  now)  —  it  turns  your  personal 
computer  into  a  voracious  equation 
processor. 

The  next  thing  you  should  know  is 
that  if  the  TKiSolver  program  can't 
make  life  with  your  personal  computer 
easier  land  pay  for  itself),  even  if  you 
use  it  only  15  minutes  a  week,  you  are 
a  very  rare  person. 

And  finally,  you  should  know  ex¬ 
actly  what  equation  processing  is, 
and  how  it  works.  If  you  keep  reading 
this,  you  will 

Equation  processing  with 
TKiSolver,  or  problem  solving 
made  easy.  The  best  way  to  under¬ 
stand  what  the  TKiSolver  program  is, 
is  to  understand  what  it  does.  The 
following  simple  example  is  designed 
to  do  just  that.  If  you1  re  still  a  little  in 
the  dark  after  reading  it,  stop  in  at 
your  local  computer  store  for  a  very 
enlightening  hands-on  demonstration. 

Begin  by  setting  up  your  problem. 
The  TKiSolver  program  lets  you  da  it 
quickly,  easily,  and  naturally.  For  ex¬ 
ample,  a  car  costs  $9785.  What  would 
be  the  monthly  payment  on  a  three- 
year  loan  if  the  down  payment  is  25% 
and  the  interest  rate  is  15%? 

STEP  1.  Formulate  the  necessary 
equations  to  solve  your  problem  and 
enter  them  on  the  "Rule  Sheet"  simply 


(  1  r  )  fin  1  e 

"CAR  LOAtt 

MARI 

SHEET  - 

St  Input 

Name 

Output 

Unit 

Comment 

9785 

price 

do  J lars 

price  of  car 

down 

zm.zs 

do  l  lars 

down  payment 

loan 

733B.75 

Ao\ lars 

bank  loan 

25 

dp 

percent 

down  payment  percentage 

payment 

254 . 40018  dollars 

monthly  payment 

IS 

i 

percent 

interest  rate 

3 

term 

years 

term  of  loan 

.  ”  =  RULE  SHEET  ============ss 

S  Rule 


by  typing  them  in  (as  in  the  screen 
photo).  For  example:  "price^down  = 
loan." 

STEP  2*  Enter  your  known  values  the 
same  way  on  the  "Variable  Sheet."  For 
example:  "9785"  for  price.  You  may 
□Iso  enter  units  and  comments,  if  you 
want.* 

STEP  3.  Type  the  action  command 
1*1"  on  your  keyboard)  to  solve  the 
problem. 

STEP  4.  TKiSolver  displays  the  an¬ 
swer:  the  monthly  payment  is  $254.40. 

Backsolvirtg,  the  heart  of 
TKiSolver.  Now  that  you’ve  defined 


the  problem  and  solved  it,  TKiSolver  s 
unique  backsolving  ability  also  lets 
you  think  "backwards"  to  solve  for  any 
variable,  regardless  of  its  position  in 
the  equation.  For  example,  if  you  can 
only  afford  a  monthly  payment  of 
$200,  you  can  re-sol ve  the  problem  in 
terms  of  that  constraint.  The  TKiSolver 
program  will  solve  the  problem,  dis¬ 
playing  your  choice  of  a  higher  down 
payment,  a  longer  loan  term,  or  a 
lesser  interest  rate.  This  unique  back- 
solving  capability  forms  the  basis  of 
TKISolvers  remarkably  flexible  prob¬ 
lem-solving  ability. 


Also,  os  you  con  see  from  the 
exomple  on  the  screen,  TKiSolver 
deals  not  only  with  single  variables, 
but  with  entire  equations  and  sets  of 
simultaneous  equations.  It  also  deals 
with  much  more  complicated  problems 
than  this  one.  How  complicated? 

That's  up  to  you.  What  kinds  of  prob¬ 
lems?  That's  up  ta  you,  too,  but  pop¬ 
ular  applications  include  finance, 
engineering,  science,  design,  and 
education. 

Other  extremely  useful  and 
interesting  things  TKiSolver 
does.  Aside  from  its  basic  problem¬ 
solving  abilities,  the  TKiSolver  program 
performs  a  number  of  pretty  fancy 
tricks.  Like:  /terafrve  Solving;  in  which 
TKiSolver  performs  successive  approx¬ 
imations  of  on  answer  when  con¬ 
fronted  with  equations  that  cannot  be 
solved  directly,! like  exp  ix]  =  2  -  x  *  y 
and  sin  lx  -  yl=  3  -  x  -  yh  Like:  List 
Solving;  in  which  TKiSolver  attacks 
complete  lists  of  input  values  and 
solves  them  all,  allowing  you  to  exam¬ 
ine  numerous  alternative  solutions,  and 
pick  the  one  you  like  best.  Like:  Tab/es 
and  Graphs;  using  the  values  you  pro- 
duced  with  the  List  Solver,  the  TKiSolver 
program  will  automatically  produce  ta¬ 
bles  and  graphs  of  your  data.  You  can 
look  at  your  formatted  output  on  the 
screen  or  send  it  to  your  printer  with 
a  single  keystroke.  And  like:  Automatic 


1 1  nit  Conversion ;  in  which  TKiSolver 
lets  you  formulate  problems  in  one  unit 
of  measurement,  and  display  answers 
in  another  Very  convenient  what  with 
all  this  talk  about  going  metric. 

The  TKiSolver  program  also  pro¬ 
vides  a  wide  variety  of  specialized 
business  and  mathematical  functions 
like  trig  and  log  and  net  present 
value. 

Then,  there's  TKiSolver  s  cr -screen 
Help  facility  that  provides  information 
on  commands  and  features  any  time 
yau  want  it.  Just  type  and  a  topic 
name. 

And  of  course  the  TKiSolver  pro¬ 
gram  combines  all  these  features  in 
one  integrated  program. 
TK!SolverPacks  make  problem¬ 
solving  a  picnic.  TKSSolverPacP 
application  pockages  are  specially 
developed  by  experts  in  specific  fields. 
Each  package  contains  a  diskette  with 
about  a  dozen  models  that  include 
the  necessary  equations,  values,  and 
tables  for  solving  o  particular  problem. 
The  models  are  usable  as-is  or  you 
can  easily  modify  them, 

TKISolverPack  application  pack¬ 
ages  available  from  Software  Arts 
include  Finoncial  Management, 
Mechanical  Engineering,  Building 
Design  and  Construction,  and  Intro¬ 
ductory  Science.  Additional  TKiSolver- 
Packs  are  on  the  way  from  Software 


I  M 

Arts,  McGraw-Hill,  and  others. 

We  know  you’re  out  there.  No 

matter  who  you  are,  or  what  yau  do, 
if  it  involves  using  equations,  the 
TKiSolver  program  is  an  indispensable1 
tool  for  you. 

So,  visit  your  local  computer  store 
today,  and  see  TKiSolver  in  action. 
You'll  be  amazed  at  how  much  faster 
and  more  effectively  you'll  be  able  to 
work  when  you  discover  the  power  of 
equation  processing  with  the  TKiSolver 


Software  Arts 

The  inventor's  of  VisiCafc ■ 


27  Mica  Lane,  Wellesley,  Massachusetts  02181 
617/237-4000 


You  can  easily  define  appropriate  unit  conversions  on  the  unit  sheet, 

TK,TK!  TKiSolver,  TKlSolverPocK  The  Problem  Cruncher,  the  styled  !  and  the  slogan  "NOW  VOU  DON'T  HAVE  TO  THINK  LIKE  A  COMPUTER  TO  USE  ONEJ' 
□re  trademarks  °r  registered  trademarks  of  Software  Arts,  Inc,  SATN,  TKlSATN  and  Dlf  are  Trademarks  Or  registered  trademarks  of  Software  Arts  Products  Carp. 
Software  Arts  is  a  trademark  of  Software  Arts,  Inc.  and  Software  Arts  Products  Corp.  The  TKiSolver  progrom  arid  ihe  TKISolverPack  applications  packages  are 
oroducts  of  Software  Arts,  Inc,  which  is  solely  responsible  far  their  contents.  VisiCak  is  a  registered  trademark  of  VisiCorp,  McGraw-Hill  is  a  trademark 

of  McGrow  Mill,  Inc.  Copyright  &  1983  Software  Arts,  Inc.  All  rights  reserved. 


1 

;  VALIDATE 

2 

3 

•  THIS  ROUTINE  WILL  CHECK  FOR  VALID 

4 

;  FILE  NAMES  AND  IS  CALLED  FROM  BASIC 

5 

6 

;  WRITTEN  BY  HOWARD  GLOSSER 

7 

8 

;  RETURN  CODE  IS  SET  AS  FOLLOWS... 

9 

10 

;  1- GLOBAL  NAME 

11 

;  2 -INVALID  DRIVE 

12 

;  4  -  INVALID  FILENAME 

13 

;  8  -  NO  EXTENSION  ON  FILENAME 

14 

15 

0000 

CSEG 

SEGMENT 

16 

ASSUME  CS:CSEG 

17 

0000  EB  03  90 

JMP  BEGIN 

18 

0003  0000 

RETCD 

DW  0 

19 

0005 

VALIDATE 

PROC  FAR 

20 

0005  55 

BEGIN: 

PUSH  BP 

SAVE  BP  FOR  FAR  RETURN 

21 

0006  8BEC 

MOV  BP,SP 

MOVE  STACK  POINTER  TO  BP 

22 

0008  8B5E0A 

MOV  BX, [BP] +  10 

POINT  BX  AT  PARM  1 

23 

000B  8B  77  01 

MOVSUIBX1 

GET  RLE  NAME  TO  VALIDATE 

24 

000E  8B5E08 

MOV  BX, [BP] +8 

POINT  BX  AT  PARM  2 

25 

0011  8B7F01 

MOV  DU[BX] 

GET  WORKAREA 

26 

0014  2E;  C7  06  0003  R  0000 

MOV  CS:RETCD,0 

MOVE  0  TO  RETURN  CODE 

27 

001B  56 

PUSH  SI 

SAVE  SI  REGISTER 

28 

001C  B0  0F 

MOV  AL,0FH 

BITS  ON  IN  LOW  AL  REG  FOR  PARSE 

29 

001E  B4  29 

MOV  AH,29H 

SET  UP  FOR  PARSING  FILENAME 

30 

0020  CD  21 

INT21H 

DOS  INTERRUPT 

31 

0022  5E 

POP  SI 

RESTORE  SI  REGISTER 

32 

0023  3C01 

CMP  AL,01H 

DO  WE  HAVE  A  GLOBAL  NAME? 

33 

0025  75  07 

JNE  CKDRV 

NO  -  CHECK  DRIVE 

34 

0027  2E:  81  0E  0003  R  0001 

OR  CS:RETCD,01H 

YES  -  INDICATE  GLOBAL  NAME 

35 

002E 

CKDRV: 

36 

002E  80  7C  01  3A 

CMP  BYTE  PTR  [SI] +  1/:' 

IS  THERE  A  DRIVE  LETTER? 

37 

0032  75  0E 

JNE  CKNAME 

NO  -  CHECK  THE  NAME 

38 

0034  83C6  02 

ADD  SI, 2 

YES  -  SET  SI  PAST  LETTER/COLON 

39 

0037  3C  FF 

CMP  AL,0FFH 

IS  IT  VALID? 

40 

0039  75  07 

JNE  CKNAME 

YES  -  GO  CHECK  NAME 

41 

003B  2E:  81  0E  0003  R  0002 

OR  CS:RETCD,02H 

NO  -  INDICATE  INVALID  DRIVE 

42 

0042 

CKNAME: 

43 

0042  80  7D  01  20 

CMP  BYTE  PTR[DI]  +  1," 

INVALID  CHARACTERS  IN  NAME 

44 

0046  75  0A 

JNE  SCANAME 

NO  -  SCAN  FOR  NAME 

45 

0048  2E:  81  0E  0003  R  0004 

OR  CS:RETCD,04H 

YES  -  INDICATE  INVALID  NAME 

46 

004F  EB3E90 

JMP  NAMEDONE 

DONE  -  GO  LEAVE  SUBROUTINE 

47 

0052 

SCANAME: 

48 

0052  B0  2E 

MOV  AL,7 

;SET  AL  FOR  END  OF  NAME  SCAN 

49 

0054  B9  0009 

MOV  CX,9 

;SCAN  9  CHARACTERS 

50 

0057 

NAMELOOP: 

51 

0057  38  04 

* 

CMP  BYTE  PTR  (SI],AL 

GET  A  HIT  ON  7 

52 

0059  74  12 

JE  CKEXT 

YES  -  CHECK  EXTENSION 

53 

005B  80  3C20 

CMP  BYTE  PTR  {SI)/ ' 

HIT  A  BLANK 

54 

005 E  74  28 

JE  NOEXT 

YES  -  NO  EXTENSION  ON  NAME 

55 

0060  46 

INC  SI 

BUMP  NAME  ONE  CHARACTER 

56 

0061  E2F4 

LOOP  NAMELOOP 

DO  AGAIN 

57 

0063  2E:  81  0E  0003  R  0004 

OR  CS:RETCD,04H 

GET  HERE  -  NAME'S  INVALID 

58 

006A  EB  23  90 

JMP  NAMEDONE 

DONE  -  GO  LEAVE  SUBROUTINE 

59 

006D 

CKEXT: 

60 

006D  46 

INC  SI 

BUMP  SI  PAST ' 

61 

006E  B0  20 

MOV  AL/ ' 

SET  AL  FOR  EXTENSION  SCAN 

62 

0070  B9  0004 

MOV  CX,4 

SCAN  4  CHARACTERS 

63 

0073  38  04 

CMP  BYTE  PTR  [SI],AL 

GET  A  HIT  ON  "  AT  START 

64 

0075  74  18 

JE  NAMEDONE 

YES  -  THERE'S  NO  ACTUAL  EXT 

65 

0077 

EXTLOOP: 

66 

0077  38  04 

CMP  BYTE  PTR  [SI],AL 

GET  A  HIT  ON ' ' 

67 

0079  74  14 

JE  NAMEDONE 

YES  -  FILENAME  IS  OKAY 

68 

007B  46 

INC  SI 

BUMP  TO  NEXT  CHARACTER  IN  EXT 

69 

007C  E2F9 

LOOP  EXTLOOP 

DO  AGAIN 

70 

007E  2E:  81  0E  0003  R  0004 

OR  CS:  RETCD,  04H 

GET  HERE  -  NAME'S  INVALID 

71 

0085  EB  08  90 

JMP  NAMEDONE 

;DONE  -  GO  LEAVE  SUBROUTINE 

72 

0088 

NOEXT: 

73 

0088  2Ej  81  0E  0003  R  0008 

OR  C$;RETCD,08H 

;NO  EXTENSION  -  INDICATE  THIS 

74 

008F 

NAMEDONE: 

75 

008F  8B  7E  06 

MOV  DLIBPJ+6 

;  POINT  DI  AT  PARM  3 

76 

0092  2E:  A1  0003  R 

MOV  AX,CS:RETCD 

;PUT  RETURN  CODE  IN  AX 

77 

0096  89  05 

MOV  [DI],AX 

;MOVE  RETURN  CODE  FOR  BASIC 

78 

0098  5D 

POP  BP 

;  RESTORE  BP 

79 

0099  CA  0006 

RET  6 

; RETURN  WITH  3  PARMS  ON  STACK 

80 

009C 

VALIDATE 

ENDP 

81 

009C 

CSEG 

ENDS 

82 

END 

▲ 

Figure  3. 

64 


softcilk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


Now  you  can  have 
a  completely  integrated  financial 
software  system. 


Now  Financier  II 

The  financial  software 
that  has  met  with 
resounding  approval 
from  professional  soft¬ 
ware  reviewers  just  got 
even  better.  Now,  the 
Financier  Personal 
Series  has  been  up¬ 
graded  to  Financier  II. 
Combined  with  Finan¬ 
cier's  Tax  Series  and 
Investor's  Series,  it  cre¬ 
ates  a  totally  integrated 
financial  management 
system.  Financier  II  is 
so  easy  to  use  that  it 
is  ideal  for  personal 
finance  yet  powerful 
enough,  and  flexible 
enough,  to  function  as  a 
small  business  system. 

"It  is  clear  that  the 
Financier  Personal 
Series  is  the  most 
sophisticated  and 
flexible  of  the  finan¬ 
cial  programs  under 
review  here."* 

Burton  A1  person,  Ph.D. 

Reviewer,  SGFTAUC 
June,  1983 

Financier  II  features 
enhanced  graphics 
capabilities,  and 
expansion  of  Finan¬ 
cier's  unique  auto¬ 
checking  capability 
which  prints  checks 
directly  from  a  user- 
maintained  database, 
while  updating  bank, 
budget  and  tax  records. 
Additionally  it  pro¬ 
vides  a  full  range  of 
professional-caliber 
financial  statements 
including  net  worth, 
and  cash  flow  reports. 
You  can  even  opt  for 
double-entry  account¬ 
ing  methods,  if  desired. 


"Out  of  ali  these  pro¬ 
grams,**  the  Financier 
Personal  Series  pro¬ 
vides  the  best  balance 
of  extensive  capabili¬ 
ties  and  ease  of  use. 
The  manual  is  out¬ 
standing  as  an  intro¬ 
duction  to  both  the 
practice  of  bookkeep¬ 
ing,  and  the  use  of  a 
personal  computer  to 
perform  this  task/" 

Sleven  Yoder  and 
Sherry  Knight,  CPA 
PC  Magazine,  February,  1983 

Financier  II  is  remark¬ 
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You  don't  have  to  be  a 
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because  it's  menu- 


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Money,  June,  1983 

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based  microcomputer  that  plugs  into  your  IBM  PC  to 
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either  a  serial  or  parallel  printer.  Babytalk  also  has  a 
Realtime  Clock/Calendar  with  battery  backup  tor 
programmable  message  dispatching,  and  so  that  you 
don't  have  to  set  time/date  each  time  your  system  boots, 

Babytalk  is  from  the  same  people  who  gave  you  Baby 
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Micro  lag 

A  TU  INTERNATIONAL  COMPANY 


SYS! 

in 

by  Alan  Boyd 

ast  month  we  started  covering  DOS  2.0  in¬ 
ternal  commands,  such  as  the  simple  vol 
and  ver.  This  month  well  take  a  look  at 
other  internal  commands,  some  of  which 
have  considerably  more  substance. 

Break.  The  first  command  that  well  review  is  break ,  an  internal 
command  that  made  its  first  appearance  along  with  DOS  2.0.  The 
break  command  sets,  resets,  and  reports  on  the  status  of  the  extended 
control-break  function.  That  sounds  like  a  mouthful.  To  understand 
the  break  command  you  must  first  understand  a  little  bit  about  control- 
break  and  the  effect  that  it  has  on  the  operating  system. 

Control-break  is  used  to  halt  many  DOS  processes  and  is  univer¬ 
sally  used  by  the  languages  operating  under  DOS  as  a  halt  function, 
allowing  the  user  to  break  out  of  any  process  as  fast  as  possible.  DOS, 
however,  is  a  single- tasking  operating  system,  which  means  it  can  do 
only  one  thing  at  a  time.  Therefore  some  time  must  always  elapse  and 
some  DOS  functions  must  be  completed  before  DOS  can  check  to  see  if 
the  control-break  combination  has  been  pressed.  This  is  because  DOS 
has  to  poll  the  keyboard  processor  to  find  out  if  any  keys  have  been 
pressed  while  it  was  off  performing  the  last  function.  If  a  key  (or  key 
combination)  has  been  pressed,  DOS  needs  to  determine  what  the  key 
(or  combination  of  keys)  is. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  every  time  DOS  services  certain  devices,  it  also 
deliberately  checks  to  see  if  the  control-break  combination  has  been 
pressed.  However,  this  does  not  happen  as  often  as  would  be  appropri¬ 
ate  for  certain  functions.  To  grasp  this  concept  firmly  you  need  to  un¬ 
derstand  an  exceptionally  powerful  concept — another  way  to  talk  to 
DOS. 

Most  people  are  familiar  only  with  the  standard  keyboard-and-file 
method  of  passing  information  to  DOS  and  commanding  it  to  perform 
its  tricks.  This  communication  between  the  operating  system  and  the 
user  takes  place  entirely  through  the  command  line  processor,  or  shell. 
This  is  the  part  of  the  operating  system  that  puts  the  familiar  A) 
prompt  on  the  screen  and  interprets  commands  entered  at  the  key¬ 
board.  However,  beneath  this  level  sits  a  whole  world  that  a  skilled 
programmer  can  access. 

The  lower  levels  of  DOS  are  structured  as  a  series  of  system  calls.  A 
system  call  is  a  method  of  addressing  the  operating  system  that  specifies 
one  particular  action.  For  example,  there  are  DOS  system  calls  for 
opening  and  closing  files,  for  reading  and  writing  blocks  to  and  from 
the  disk,  for  putting  a  character  on  the  screen,  for  getting  a  character 
from  the  keyboard,  and  so  forth.  Even  the  simplest  of  programs  makes 
a  very  large  number  of  DOS  system  calls  during  its  operation.  DOS 
checks  for  a  control-break  during  only  some  of  these  calls.  If  DOS 
checked  during  every  system  call,  the  operating  system  would  perform 
much  more  slowly. 

DOS  checks  for  control-break  whenever  it  sends  a  character  to  the 


Break,  Verify,  Set,  Ctty,  and  Prompt 

video  screen  (which  is  obviously  very  often),  whenever  it  is  instructed 
to  get  a  key  from  the  keyboard  (which  is  almost  as  often),  whenever  it 
sends  a  character  to  the  printer,  and  whenever  it  sends  or  receives  a 
character  from  any  peripheral  device  (these  system  calls  all  belong  to 
the  category  of  character  I/O).  Although  this  seems  like  a  staggering 
number  of  times  to  check  for  a  key  combination,  there  are  actually 
situations  when  it  may  be  best  for  DOS  to  check  more  often. 

For  example,  any  computer  operation  that  doesn't  require  input  or 
output  for  long  periods  is  a  candidate  for  extended  control-break 
checking.  Examples  of  such  activities  include  the  compiling  or  assem¬ 
bly  processes  associated  with  program  development.  During  these 
processes  the  computer  is  given  a  file  called  the  source  file  and  is  ex¬ 
pected  to  transform  the  information  in  that  file  into  a  second  file  called 
the  object  file.  Given  a  particularly  slow  compiler  or  assembler  and  a 


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67 


particularly  long  program,  the  process  could  go  on  for  hours  without 
DOS's  looking  for  keypresses  or  sending  a  character  to  the  screen  or 
any  other  device.  Obviously,  a  better  method  of  stopping  such  a  proc¬ 
ess  is  needed. 

The  answer  is  supplied  by  the  break  command.  When  the  extended 
break  check  is  turned  on,  DOS  will  check  for  the  control-break  combi¬ 
nation  every  time  a  system  call  is  made.  This  means  that  it  checks  every 
time  the  disk  system  is  called  and  every  time  the  operating  system  is 
asked  to  handle  a  memory  management  function.  In  fact,  it  checks  any 
time  the  operating  system  is  called  to  perform  any  function. 

There  is  no  good  way  to  demonstrate  the  use  of  the  break  command 
with  the  simple  utilities  supplied  by  DOS.  However,  the  pc  users  who 
are  most  likely  to  use  the  break  command  are  programmers,  who  un¬ 
doubtedly  have  access  to  compilers  and  assemblers  that  eat  up  large 
chunks  of  processing  time. 

To  turn  on  the  extended  control-break  checking  simply  enter 
A  >  BREAK  ON 
To  turn  it  off  enter 

A  >  BREAK  OFF 

If  you  cannot  remember  the  current  break-checking  status,  simply  en¬ 
ter  the  single  word 
A)  BREAK 

and  DOS  will  respond  by  telling  you  either 
BREAK  is  on 
or 

BREAK  is  off 

Like  many  other  commands  oriented  toward  the  more  technical 
user,  break  is  a  very  suitable  candidate  for  inclusion  in  a  batch  file, 
although  it  is  not  in  itself  regarded  as  a  batch  command. 

Verify.  Our  next  DOS  internal  command  is  verify,  which,  like  the 


other  commands  in  this  category,  was  not  present  in  DOS  1 — or  was  it? 
You  may  remember  from  our  discussion  of  commands  such  as  copy 
that  there  is  a  /V  switch  that  can  be  added  to  some  commands  that  will 
force  them  to  verify  a  writing  process. 

A  computer  verifies  a  writing  process  by  reading  it  back  into  mem¬ 
ory  and  comparing  the  written  image  with  the  original;  if  it  finds  any 
discrepancies,  it  retries  the  process.  After  a  prespecified  number  of 
tries,  the  system  generates  an  error  message  and  proceeds  to  the  next 
step.  In  DOS,  the  error  message  is  usually  the  "Abort,  Retry,  Ignore?" 
that  we  all  have  come  to  know  and  love. 

With  the  new  verify  command  built  in  to  DOS  2.0,  you  can  tell  the 
operating  system  to  verify  every  writing  process,  thereby  flagging  all 
writing  errors.  To  do  this,  simply  turn  the  verify  command  on  by  enter¬ 
ing 

A  >  VERIFY  ON 

When  verify  is  on,  any  disk  operation  that  involves  writing  will  be 
noticeably  slower.  However,  the  integrity  of  the  data  being  written  will 
be  guaranteed  to  a  much  greater  extent. 

To  turn  it  back  off  simply  enter 
A>  VERIFY  OFF 

As  with  other  DOS  commands  of  this  type,  if  you  need  to  know  the 
current  status — either  on  or  off — simply  enter  the  command  with  no 
arguments — 

A  >  VERIFY 

DOS  will  return  either 
VERIFY  is  off 
or 

VERIFY  is  on 

Once  it's  on,  verify  stays  on  until  the  computer  is  turned  off  or  the 
state  is  reset  by  means  of  another  verify  command.  You  should  be 


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aware  that  it  is  possible  for  an  application  program  to  turn  verify  off 
through  a  DOS  call  without  warning  the  user.  Therefore,  if  you  are 
preparing  to  copy  some  very  important  files  it  is  best  to  turn  verify  on 
immediately  before  you  copy  the  files.  In  fact,  it  may  be  beneficial  to 
create  a  batch  file  for  the  process  that  turns  the  verify  on. 

Set.  The  set  command  is  yet  another  internal  command  that  made 
its  first  appearance  with  DOS  2.0.  Its  full  name  is  the  set  environment 
command,  and  it  has  been  promoted  in  the  IBM  manual  to  the  status  of 
an  advanced  DOS  command.  Set  allows  you  to  customize  the  environ¬ 
ment— the  particular  setup  of  the  operating  system — by  using  string 
variables,  much  the  way  a  programming  language  does. 

The  format  of  the  set  command  is  quite  simple.  It  looks  almost  like  a 
variable  assignment  statement  in  Basic.  The  generic  form  of  the  com¬ 
mand  is 

SET  $1  =  $2 

where  $1  is  the  ASCII  string  that  is  to  be  set  and  $2  is  the  ASCII  string 
that  $1  is  to  be  set  to. 

This  explains  how  it  is  used.  Why  it  is  used  is  a  more  complex  ques¬ 
tion.  Set  has  been  placed  among  the  advanced  DOS  commands  be¬ 
cause  it  really  falls  into  the  domain  of  the  application  programmer  (or 
the  maintenance  group  involved  in  debugging  or  setting  up  systems  for 
inexperienced  users). 

Once  a  string  has  been  set  in  the  environment,  the  "alias"  to  which  it 
has  been  set  can  be  used  by  any  application  program  that  uses  the  envi¬ 
ronment.  This  may  seem  a  little  strange  at  first,  particularly  since  an 
application  program  must  be  set  up  to  make  use  of  the  environment. 
Once  an  environment  has  been  set,  the  information  is  passed  through 
DOS  to  whatever  program  is  to  use  it.  In  technical  terms,  the  Code 
Segment  (or  Program  Segment,  as  IBM  calls  it)  Prefix  contains  a 
pointer  to  the  environment  table. 

In  addition  to  any  variables  defined  by  the  use  of  the  set  command, 
the  environment  table  contains  information  that  is  important  to  appli¬ 
cation  programs  running  under  DOS.  For  example,  have  you  ever 
wondered  how  programs  running  under  DOS  manage  to  keep  track  of 
where  the  appropriate  Command.com  file  is  located?  Or,  to  take  an¬ 
other  example,  if  you  set  a  path  or  two  for  DOS  to  use,  how  is  the  path 
information  passed  to  an  application  program?  The  answer  is,  of 
course,  through  the  environment  table. 

The  set  command  has  a  mode  whereby  the  contents  of  the  current 
environment  can  be  checked.  To  see  this  for  yourself,  simply  enter  the 
command  set  with  no  other  parameters.  This  should  produce  the  fol¬ 
lowing: 

A)  SET 
PATH= 

COMSPEC  =  A:  \  COMMAND.COM 
This  is  the  raw,  unmodified  environment  to  which  DOS  defaults  when 
it  first  is  booted.  As  you  can  see,  no  path  is  set.  If  you  define  a  new  path 
using  the  path  command,  the  environment  will  be  modified  accord¬ 
ingly.  Try  it. 

A>SET 

COMSPEC  =  A:  \  COMMAND.COM 
PATH  =\  USRl  \  FILES 

The  path  variable  was  reset  and  moved  to  the  end  of  the  list.  Now, 
when  DOS  or  an  application  program  running  under  DOS  is  searching 
for  a  file,  it  will  look  along  the  specified  path  if  it  does  not  find  the  file  in 
the  currently  logged  directory.  It  is  through  this  environment  table  that 
DOS  passes  this  information  to  an  application  program. 

Similarly,  the  Comspec  variable  that's  automatically  set  in  the  envi¬ 
ronment  points  to  the  path  along  which  the  proper  command  processor 
(Command.com)  will  be  found.  This  usually  will  be  the  root  directory 
on  the  drive  from  which  the  system  was  booted.  This  parameter  is  used 
by  DOS  to  reload  the  command  processor  when  it  needs  to. 

For  setting  and  resetting  environment  parameters  using  the  set  com¬ 
mand,  there  are  the  usual  two  forms  of  the  command.  The  first  is  used 


for  aliasing  variables.  For  example,  to  set  the  string  USRl  to  be  /DE- 
BUGl,  the  command 

A) SET  USR1=DEBUG1 

can  be  used.  If  we  now  look  at  the  environment  table  we  see  that  the 
string  USRl  =  DEBUGl  has  been  added. 

A)  SET 

COMSPEC  =  A:  \  COMMAND.COM 
PATH=\  USRl  \  FILES 
USRl  =  DEBUGl 

The  new  addition  to  the  environment  can  be  used  to  alias  the  string 
USRl  to  DEBUGl  in  an  application  program.  This  would  allow  the 
programmer  to,  say,  switch  directories  for  debugging  purposes  at  run 
time. 

There  are  other  uses  for  the  set  command,  particularly  with  batch 
files,  as  we  will  see  later  when  we  take  an  in-depth  look  at  the  new, 
improved  batch  facilities  of  DOS  2.0. 

Ctty.  The  last  of  the  new  internal  commands  to  appear  with  DOS 
2.0  is  the  powerful  ctty ;  which  is  used  to  change  the  command  console. 
This  command  is  particularly  useful  in  those  configurations  where  a 
remote  terminal  is  attached  to  the  pc  through  a  serial  line  or  where  a 
printer  that  also  has  a  keyboard  is  attached. 

The  effect  of  ctty  differs  from  simple  I/O  redirection  in  that  all  input 
and  output,  including  error  messages,  is  redirected  to  the  auxiliary  con¬ 
sole.  Under  standard  redirection,  of  course,  the  error  messages  will  still 
be  displayed  on  the  console  screen.  The  ctty  command  actually  tells 
DOS  to  replace  the  keyboard  and  screen  with  whatever  device  is  as¬ 
signed  to  it. 

Obviously,  the  auxiliary  device  must  be  character-oriented  and 
have  both  input  capabilities  (such  as  a  keyboard)  and  output  capabili¬ 
ties  (either  a  screen  or  a  printout  device).  It  doesn't  make  sense  to 
change  the  command  console  to  a  disk  drive  or  any  other  device  that 
doesn't  have  a  character-input  facility. 


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When  a  remote  terminal  is  attached  to  the  pc  through  a  serial  port 
and  the  port  is  configured  through  the  mode  command  to  work  with 
the  terminal  at  the  correct  speed,  it  is  perfectly  feasible  to  operate  the  pc 
from  either  the  main  console  or  the  remote  terminal.  Of  course  you 
have  to  tell  DOS  manually  to  switch  control  before  you  leave  the  main 
console;  otherwise  it  will  ignore  whatever  is  entered  on  the  remote  con¬ 
sole. 

The  way  to  tell  DOS  to  switch  command  consoles  to  the  remote 
device  is  to  use  the  ctty  command  along  with  the  reserved  device  names 
that  you  have  been  using  all  along.  The  generic  format  is 
CTTY  device 

where  device  is  one  of  the  reserved  device  names — Aux,  Coml,  or 
Com2.  Invoking  the  command  will  cause  the  main  console  to  go  dead 
and  all  activity  to  be  directed  to  the  remote  device.  To  return  command 
to  the  main  console,  you  need  to  enter  the  command 
A  >  CTTY  CON 

on  the  remote  terminal.  This  will  restore  the  default  status  and  redirect 
all  communications  through  the  main  keyboard  and  screen. 

As  we  shall  see  later,  DOS  also  allows  users  to  create  and  install  new 
devices  on  their  own.  The  new  devices  are  interfaced  to  DOS  through 
an  installable  device  driver.  If  a  new  character-oriented  I/O  device  is 
installed,  DOS  can  direct  main  I/O  to  it  through  the  ctty  command. 
This,  however,  is  well  beyond  the  capabilities  of  most  users,  since  it 
involves  the  creation  of  complex  device  drivers  in  assembly  language. 
If  a  manufacturer  ships  such  a  device  driver  with  its  hardware,  it  is 
possible  to  direct  I/O  to  the  device  through  the  installed  device  driver. 
For  information  on  how  to  do  that  you  should  first  consult  the  manu¬ 
facturer  and  confirm  that  his  device  driver  conforms  to  all  the  DOS 
requirements  first. 

Prompt.  The  prompt  command  is  unusual  because  the  DOS  manual 


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C86  is  a  trademark  of  Computer  Innovations,  Inc.  CPM-86  and  MPM-86  are 
trademarks  of  Digital  Research.  MS-DOS  is  a  trademark  of  Microsoft 
PC-DOS  is  a  trademark  of  International  Business  Machines 


says  that  it's  an  external  DOS  command.  An  examination  of  the  two 
disks  supplied  with  the  DOS  package,  however,  reveals  no  file  called 
Prompt.com.  Manual  notwithstanding,  prompt  in  fact  is  internal  and 
does  not  require  DOS  to  access  anything  from  the  disk  system. 

The  purpose  of  the  prompt  command  is  to  change  the  command 
prompt  that  DOS  throws  on  screen  when  it  is  free  and  waiting  for  you 
to  enter  your  next  command.  In  its  default  condition,  the  standard 
DOS  prompt  is  the  one  we  all  immediately  recognize. 

A) 

The  first  character  is  always  the  default  drive  letter  and  is  always  fol¬ 
lowed  by  the  >  character.  Very  convenient  and  informative. 

Why  would  anyone  want  to  change  it?  Because  computer  people 
tend  to  be  very  particular  about  their  prompts,  and  everyone  has  a 
different  prompting  system  that  they  like  and  feel  comfortable  with. 

Unfortunately,  just  about  every  major  operating  system  in  use  has  a 
different  prompting  system,  and  many  people  use  them  so  much  that 
they  begin  to  feel  comfortable  with  a  particular  scheme.  This  is  particu¬ 
larly  true  of  users  of  mainframe  and  minicomputer  systems  such  as 
Unix,  TOPS-10  and  TOPS-20,  OS,  and  RSTS.  People  become  locked 
into  a  particular  prompting  scheme  and  complain  that  their  pc  is  infe¬ 
rior  because  it  can't  emulate  their  favorite  flavor  of  prompting.  Now, 
through  the  prompt  command,  DOS  supplies  a  do-it-yourself  prompt¬ 
generating  kit. 

The  simplest  way  to  use  the  prompt  command  is  to  enter 
PROMPT  text 

where  text  represents  the  string  that  you  would  like  the  new  prompt  to 
be.  For  example,  if  you  are  the  dominant  type  and  prefer  to  have  a 
master/slave  relationship  with  your  pc,  you  could  change  the  prompt 
with  something  like 

A  >  PROMPT  Yes,  Boss? 

Which  would  cause  DOS  to  prompt  you  in  all  future  cases  with 
Yes,  Boss? 

If  you  are  changing  your  prompt  to  something  like  this,  you  should 
be  careful  to  leave  a  blank  space  at  the  end  of  the  command  before 
pressing  the  enter  key,  so  there  will  be  a  space  at  the  end  of  the  prompt. 
Otherwise,  when  you  enter  commands  it  will  be  difficult  to  differentiate 
the  command  from  the  prompt. 

The  only  limits  to  the  type  of  prompt  that  you  can  design  using  this 
method  are  the  127-character  maximum  command  line  length  and  your 
imagination.  Of  course,  since  prompt  takes  up  six  of  the  127  characters 
available  on  the  command  line  and  the  space  takes  up  another,  the 
longest  prompt  that  you  can  have  is  120  characters.  But  that  ought  to 
be  enough  to  tickle  even  the  most  bizarre  or  devious  sense  of  humor. 

For  those  who  prefer  their  prompts  to  be  something  other  than  sim¬ 
ply  humorous  and  who  actually  like  to  have  them  do  something,  DOS 
provides  a  menu  of  options  that  can  be  applied  to  the  prompt.  These 
include  everything  from  the  current  time  of  day  to  the  version  number 
of  DOS.  You  specify  these  special  features  by  means  of  a  cute  little 
prompt  construction  metastring  language. 

For  example,  this  system  is  capable  of  displaying  the  currently 
logged  disk  drive  in  much  the  same  way  as  the  default  prompt.  If  you 
wanted  a  new  prompt  that  read 

You  are  currently  logged  on  to  drive  X 
where  X  is  the  current  drive,  you  could  enter  the  command 
PROMPT  You  are  currently  logged  on  to  drive  $n 
The  dollar  sign  is  used  in  this  prompt  kit  to  specify  a  particular  system 
function.  The  n  that  follows  the  dollar  sign  means  that  you  want  the 
currently  logged  disk  drive  letter  to  be  displayed  in  that  position. 

Thirteen  functions  are  available  for  your  use  in  building  prompts. 
All  are  specified  by  single  characters  following  a  dollar  sign.  The  func¬ 
tions  are: 

t  the  current  system  time 

d  the  current  system  date 

p  the  currently  logged  directory  pathname 


70 


softcilk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


Microsoft’s  RAMCard  with  RAMDrive 
takes  the  whir,  click  and  wait 
out  of  the  IBM  PC. 


Solid  State  Disk.  When  you  add  the  Microsoft 
RAMCard  to  your  IBM®  Personal  Computer,  you 
also  add  RAMDrive,  which  lets  you  use 
memory  as  you  would  normally  use  a 
disk.  That  gives  you  "disk  access" 
that's  typically  50X  faster  than 
disk.  Without  the  whirring, 
clicking  and  waiting  of  mech¬ 
anical  data  access. 


Fast  and  easy.  You  simply 
designate  a  portion  of 
memory  as  "disk."  RAMDrive 
takes  it  from  there,  instructing 
the  program  to  go  to  RAM  rather 
than  disk  whenever  data  access  is 
needed.  The  result  is  faster,  smoother, 
no-wait  computing. 

64K  to  256K.  You  can  start  small,  but  think  big. 
Start  with  64 K  and  add  Microsoft  RAMChips™ 
in  64K  blocks.  Or,  buy  the  full  256K  now.  Either  way, 
you  get  both  RAM  and  "disk"  capabilities.  All  in  a 
single  slot. 


128K,  192K  or  256K}.  documenta¬ 
tion,  a  diskette  which  adds 
RAMDrive  and,  a  full  one  year 
warranty. 

More  tools  for  IBM.  Microsoft 
wrote  PC- DOS,  the  standard  operat¬ 
ing  system  for  the  IBM  Personal 
Computer.  And  Microsoft  is  first  in 
providing  a  full  range  of  languages, 
applications  programs  and  utilities 
for  the  IBM  PC.  The  addition  of  RAMCard 
with  RAMDrive  is  our  way  of  saying  that 
Microsoft  will  continue  to  offer  more  and 
better  supported  tools  for  the  IBM  PC. 

See  for  yourself.  Ask  your  Microsoft  or 
IBM  PC  dealer  for  a  demonstration  of  both 
main  memory  and  disk  features  of  the  Microsoft 
Card  with  RAMDrive.  It's  solid  state  memory 
you  can  also  use  like  a  disk.  And  it  takes  the  whir, 
click  and  wait  out  of  the  IBM  PC. 

BETTER  TOOLS  FOR  MICROCOMPUTERS 


A  complete  subsystem.  The  RAMCard  package 
comes  complete  with  the  memory  board  (64K, 


MICROSOFT 


IBM  ts  8  registered  trademark  of  International  Business  Machines  Corp. 
Microsoft,  RAMCh[psr  RAMCard,  and  RAMDrive.  are  trademarks  of 
Microsoft  Corporation. 


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Enjoy  Compatibility  PCnet  can  be  imple¬ 
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o there.  PCnet  can  also  execute  programs  directly  from 
shared  floppy  disk  drives. 

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duced,  PCnetPLUS  is  a  family  of  PCnet  enhancements 
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and  board-level  products  that  integrate  Orchid's  PCnet 
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PCnetPLUS  gives  you  advanced,  multi¬ 
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A  PCnetPLUS  Multifunction;  All  the  features  of 
PCnet  combined  with  an  async  port,  64K  addi¬ 
tional  RAM  expandable  to  2S6K,  and  an 
EPROM  socket  for  Orchid  supplied  or  user- 
designed  programs.  An  optional  daughter¬ 
board  adds  an  additional  123K  RAM,  a  second 
async  port  and  clock  /  calendar, 

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software  allows  PCnet  to  work  on  PCs  without 
costly  floppy  disk  drives  and  controllers,  so 
you  can  save  money  on  per-station  implemen¬ 
tation  costs  and  increase  your  PCs  reliability. 

JL  PCnetPLUS  Floppy  Controller:  An  IBM- 
compatible  floppy  disk  controller  is  built-in  to 
the  PCnet  board,  freeing  up  one  expansion  slot 
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you  would  pay  for  separate  components, 

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PCnet  supports 
multiple  servers  and  permits 
easy  expansion  of  the  network 
up  to  7000  feet. 


PCrtfrt  and  PCnetPLUS  arc  [rtid£imark&  of  Orchid  Technology. 


PCnet  is  multi-tasking , 
allowing  you  to  run 
remote  executions  on  a  server  PC 
while  you  perform  other  tasks. 


With  Orchid's  optional  PCnet  PLUS 
Diskless  board ,  you  can  run  PCnet  on 
PCs  without  floppy  disk  drives 
and  controllers. 


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Fremont,  CA  94539 
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PCnet  works  on  the  1BM-PC r  IBM-XT,  and 
most  IBM-compatible  personal  computers. 


NETWORK  FOR  IBM  PCs 


n  the  currently  logged  drive  letter 

v  the  version  number  message  of  the  active  DOS 

g  the  standard  >  symbol 

I  the  opposite  <  symbol 

b  the  bar  (  I )  symbol 

q  the  =  symbol 

$  the  $  character 

h  when  used  causes  a  backspace  character 

e  the  escape  character 

_  the  carriage  return— line  feed  sequence  that  causes  a 

new  line 

The  last  one  on  this  list — the  carriage  return  specifier — is  an  underscore 
character,  not  to  be  confused  with  the  hyphen. 

Let's  look  at  another  example.  To  create  a  prompt  containing  both 
the  system  time  and  the  standard  system  prompt,  you  would  issue  the 
command 

PROMPT  The  time  is  $t  $n$g 
which  would  result  in 

The  time  is  9:59:38:28  A> 

As  you  can  see,  the  various  functions  available  are  positioned  in  the 
prompt  wherever  the  dollar  sign  is  located. 

The  first  five  functions  are  self-explanatory.  The  $t  inserts  the  cur¬ 
rent  system  time  at  the  specified  position.  The  time  is  entered  in  the 
usual  format  of  hh:mm:ss.xx,  where  xx  represents  hundredths  of  a  sec¬ 
ond.  The  $d  inserts  the  current  system  date  in  its  standard  format— Tue 
8-09-83. 

The  third  function  on  the  list  is  $p,  which  inserts  the  currently 
logged  directory  pathname  into  the  prompt  and  provides  you  a  con¬ 
venient  method  of  knowing  which  directory  you  are  currently  logged 
onto. 

The  $n  function  inserts  the  currently  logged  drive  letter  into  the 
prompt  in  exactly  the  same  manner  as  the  standard  prompt.  The  $v 
function  inserts  the  standard  DOS  version-number  message  into  the 
prompt.  In  DOS  2.0,  the  standard's  version  number  message  is 
IBM  Personal  Computer  DOS  VERSION  2.00 

The  next  four  options  are  simply  methods  whereby  you  can  place 
certain  characters  into  the  prompt  without  confusing  DOS.  For  exam¬ 
ple,  the  <  and  >  characters  are  generally  parsed  by  the  DOS  command 
line  processor  as  being  I/O  redirection  symbols  to  tell  DOS  to  redirect 
the  standard  input  and  output  to  and  from  various  files  or  devices.  If 
they  were  to  be  entered  on  the  command  line  in  the  prompt  command, 


DOS  would  draw  a  false  conclusion.  You  include  them  in  the  prompt, 
therefore,  by  placing  the  appropriate  symbol  after  the  dollar  sign. 

So,  if  you  wanted  to  go  to  the  trouble  to  create  the  standard  DOS 
prompt  by  means  of  the  prompt  command,  you  could  enter 
A>  PROMPT  Sn$g 

which  tells  DOS  to  construct  a  prompt  that  contains  the  currently 
logged  disk  drive  letter  immediately  followed  by  the  >  sign,  which  is  the 
standard  DOS  prompt. 

Similarly,  the  pipe  symbol  can  still  be  included  in  the  prompt  by 
using  a  $b  (for  bar),  which  tells  DOS  to  insert  a  i  character  at  that  po¬ 
sition. 

The  equal  sign  character  is  a  special  case.  If  you  want  to  put  an 
equal  sign  into  a  prompt  amid  other  text,  simply  enter  it  as  normal  text. 
That  is  to  say,  if  you  enter 
PROMPT  1  +  1  =  2 

you  will  be  rewarded  with  the  appropriate  prompt 
1  +  1  =  2 

But  if  you  want  to  create  a  prompt  that  is  simply  the  equal  sign  by  itself, 
which  is  what  some  operating  systems  use,  you  have  to  enter  the  $  = 
combination  after  the  prompt  command. 

Last  but  not  least  is  the  dollar  sign  itself.  What  if  you  want  to  create 
a  prompt  that  includes  the  dollar  sign,  either  alone  or  with  other  text? 
Obviously,  Microsoft  would  never  leave  all  the  devoted  (not  to  say 
fanatical)  Unix  hackers  out  in  the  cold.  Now  you  can  even  make  DOS 
look  like  the  Unix  shell.  The  way  to  do  this  is  simply  to  enter  two  dollar 
signs  in  a  row  at  the  appropriate  position.  For  example,  to  create  the 
single,  Unix-like  dollar  sign  prompt,  enter 
A  >  PROMPT  $$ 

$ 

The  other  three  characters  in  the  prompt-construction  kit  that  per¬ 
form  specific  functions  are  all  powerful  features  that  further  enhance 
the  capabilities  of  the  prompt  command.  The  first  of  these,  the  $h  com¬ 
bination,  causes  a  backspace  character  to  be  generated.  This  is  fairly 
easy  to  remember  if  you  know  that  the  standard  ASCII  backspace 
character  is  control-H.  Try  typing  control-H  in  the  middle  of  a  com¬ 
mand  line  and  see  it  at  work  for  yourself. 

The  backspace  character  is  a  tool  that  you  can  use  to  construct 
prompts  in  several  ways,  some  of  them  useful,  others  more  in  the  comic 
vein.  The  more  successful  methods  include  the  shortening  of  other 
standard  functions.  For  example,  the  date  function  $d  will  always  emit 
something  that  looks  like 


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Data  Base  Decisions  •  14  Bonnie  Lane  •  Atlanta,  GA  30328  •  404/256-3860 


74 


softcilk 


Tue  8-09-19 83 

If  you  tack  five  backspace  characters  onto  it,  the  prompt  ends  up  being 
Tue  8-09 

Ten  backspace  characters  would  produce  a  prompt  that  specified  only 
the  first  three  characters  of  the  day  of  the  week — pretty  handy.  Here's 
what  that  would  look  like: 

PROMPT  $d$h$h$h$h$h$h$h$h$h$h 
By  combining  these  functions,  you  can  create  complex  prompts.  For 
example 

A  >  PROMPT  $d$h$h$h$h$h$h$h$h$h$th$h$h  $n$g 
produces  a  prompt  containing  the  day  of  the  week,  the  current  time 
(less  the  hundredths  of  a  second),  and  the  standard  DOS  prompt: 

Tue  2:01:42  A) 

As  you'll  see  if  you  try  this,  there  is  a  little  flashing  going  on  in  the 
prompt  as  the  backspace  characters  erase  previously  printed  charac¬ 
ters.  This  is  also  an  effect  that  can  be  put  to  use  in  a  whimsical  manner. 
For  example,  try  the  prompt 

A) PROMPT  This  is  a  test$h$h$h$h$h$h$h$h$h$h$hat's  all  folks 
or,  if  you  can  handle  it,  try  the  more  complex  and  artistic  prompt 

PROMPT  $n$g$h  $g$h  $g$h  $g$h  $g$h 
$g$h$h$g$h$h$g$h$h$g$h$h$g$h$h$g 

which  creates  the  standard  DOS  prompt  but  adds  a  little  animation 
along  the  way.  It  should  be  more  than  enough  to  delight  your  friends 
and  astonish  your  local  IBM  expert. 

The  function  of  the  $e  combination  is  to  place  an  escape  character 
into  the  prompt.  The  reason  for  doing  this  may  not  be  apparent  at  this 
time.  However,  we  will  return  to  this  capability  later  and  discover  how 
it  can  be  used  to  position  the  cursor  at  a  specific  location,  such  as  the 
top  of  the  screen,  and  how  it  can  be  used  to  perform  such  tasks  as 
clearing  the  screen  and  setting  colors. 

The  last  of  the  prompt  creation  tools  that  we  need  to  look  at  is  . 
This  one  causes  the  prompt  system  to  place  a  carriage  return  in  the 
middle  of  the  prompt.  The  best  way  to  illustrate  its  use  is  simply  to 
create  the  most  extravagant,  superduper,  granddaddy  prompt  of  them 
all,  using  all  the  bells  and  whistles  available  to  us. 

To  create  this  prompt,  enter  the  following: 

A)  PROMPT  Hello,  this  is  the  $v$_The  time  is  $t$  — The  date  is 
$d$_  You  are  logged  on  to  drive  $n$_  Your  directory  is 
Which  will  result  in  the  most  unlikely  of  prompts: 

Hello,  this  is  the  new  IBM  Personal  Computer  DOS  Version  2.00 
The  time  is  2:26:19:17 
The  date  is  Tue  8-09-1983 
You  are  logged  on  to  drive  A 
Your  directory  is  A:  \  USR1  \  FILES 
$ 

If  this  gets  to  be  too  much  for  you,  you  can  return  to  the  simple 
standard  DOS  prompt  by  entering  the  prompt  command  with  no  argu¬ 
ment. 

As  a  final  word  to  tie  two  of  these  new  concepts  together,  it  is  worth 
mentioning  that  the  prompt  information  is  made  part  of  the  environ¬ 
ment  table  we  saw  earlier.  If  you  change  the  prompt  and  then  take  a 
look  at  the  environment  table  by  issuing  the  null  set  command  ( set  with 
no  arguments),  you'll  see  that  the  prompt  information  is  included. 
PROMPT  $t$h$h$h$  _  $n$g 
4:31:15 
A>SET 

COMSPEC  =  A:  \  COMMAND.COM 
PATH  =  /USRl\  FILES 
PROMPT = $t$h$h$h$  _  $n$g 

As  you  can  see,  the  prompt  command  is  one  of  the  more  entertain¬ 
ing  DOS  commands.  There  are  few  rules,  except  that  your  prompt 
should  be  recognizable  as  a  prompt.  Have  fun  and,  until  next  month, 
happy  prompting.  A 


THE 

Inevitable 

Beginner's 

Manual 

Getting  Td  Know  Your  PC 


BY  CRAIG  STINSON 


From  the  moment  you  first  touch  the  key¬ 
board,  this  book  will  be  an  invaluable  source 
of  information.  It  covers  how  the  pc  works, 
how  it's  designed,  and  what  you  can  do 
with  it.  The  author  also  relates  more  ab¬ 
stract,  though  mostly  nontechnical,  notions 
about  computing  in  general.  A  well  written 
tutorial  that  every  pc  owner  should  have  at 
hand.  Gives  real  meaning  to  the  word  Per¬ 
sonal. 

This  book  is  a  revised  and  updated  compila¬ 
tion  of  the  Beginners'  Corner  columns 
which  appeared  in  Softalk for  the  IBM  PC. 


Retail  $9.95 
Holiday  Special  $8.95 

Send  order  with  payment  to: 

Softalk  Holiday  IBM 
Box  60-BD/C 

North  Hollywood,  CA  91603 

ISBN  0-88701-004-0  128  pages 

Please  enclose  $1.50  postage  and  handling  for  each  book 
ordered.  California  residents  add  6  1/2  percent  sales  tax. 
PAYMENT  MUST  ACCOMPANY  ORDER.  This  special  of¬ 
fer  expires  November  30,  1983.  Books  to  be  shipped  first 
week  of  December  1983. 

IBM  Personal  Computer  is  a  registered  trademark  of  International  Business 
Machines  Corp. 


for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


75 


Only  $599. 


For  the  first  time,  your  letter-quality  printer 
can  be  used  almost  anywhere!  Bring  the  new 
Transtar  120  with  you  to  work*  to  schopl,  and 
home  again!  Conveniently  weighing  in  ait  less 
than  19  pounds,  it  generates  unrivaled  print 
quality  and  is  the  size  of  a  standard  briefcase. 
The  new  120  is  so  light,  so  small,  that  you 
can  take  it  with  you! 

Remarkably,  the  new  $599  Transtar  120  is 
"plug  and  go"  compatible  with  the  best-sel¬ 
ling  word  processing  programs.  Just  plug  the 
120  into  your  personal  computer  and  watch 
this  precision  printer  purr  along  at  14  cps 
Shannon  text  speed  producing  superscript, 
subscript,  underlining  and  a  true  boldface. 
Even  using  letterhead  is  now  a  breeze  with 
the  1 20's  automatic  single  sheet  loading! 

Don't  worry  about  durability;  it's  a  tough 
little  machine.  It  joins  the  highly  reliable  fam¬ 
ily  of  Transtar  printers  with  a  failure  rate 
that's  the  envy  of  the  industry:  less  than  1%. 
Should  your  120  ever  need  repair,  a  nation¬ 
wide  network  of  authorized  service  centers 
stands  ready  for  speedy  repair  on  your  six- 
month  end-user  warranty. 

Just  think  of  it:  everything  you  want  in  a 
letter-quality  printer. ..any where  you  want  it. 
Only  $599. 


Transtar 

P.O.  Box  C-96975,  Bellevue,  Washington  98009 


IBM's  answer 
to  Lisa ,  the 
Star ,  VisiOn, 
and  DesQ?  The 
3270 -PC  allows 
users  to  create  as 
many  as  seven  win¬ 
dows  on  a  new  high- 
resolution,  eight-color ; 
fourteen-inch,  tilt-and- 
swivel  monitor.  The 
system  also,  of  course, 
functions  as  a  termi¬ 
nal,  permitting  users  to 
access  data  from  multiple 
host  computer  applications. 


Dn  October  18,  amidst 

the  frenzy  of  rumors  about 
a  new  and  smaller  home  machine, 

IBM  announced  its  new  PC-XT/370  computer, 
a  System/ 370-compatible  version  of  the  XT.  Current  XT  owners  who 
thought  they  were  driving  the  year's  hot  machine  from  IBM  found  out 
that  they  only  have  the  street-legal  version;  the  new  machine  makes  it 
clear  that  IBM  is  gearing  up  for  the  Indy  500  and  intends  to  win  the 


KTsr  ARRIVES 
MIRE  Kjr 

IBM  STUFFS  370  POWER 
INTO  TOE  XT 

by  John  Dickinson 


race. 


The  XT/370  is  a  standard  XT  enhanced  by  three  expansion  cards, 
the  most  interesting  of  which  contains  the  processing  horsepower  to 
turn  the  XT  into  a  370.  Two  customized  Motorola  68000  thirty-two-bit 
microprocessors  on  this  card,  along  with  an  Intel  8087  floating-point 
processor,  give  the  machine  its  oomph.  One  of  the  Motorolas  provides 
72  of  the  S/370's  132  hardware  instructions.  An  additional  45  S/370  in¬ 
structions  are  provided  by  the  second  68000,  and  the  8087— also  mod¬ 
ified  for  IBM  —  contributes  the  floating-point  power  required  for  full 
S/370  compatibility.  The  remaining  S/370  instructions  are  not  required 
for  the  XT/370. 

The  other  two  cards  contain  RAM  memory  (512K)  and  the  3277 
Model  2  terminal-emulation  package  required  for  operation  as  a  stan¬ 
dard  3270  series  bisynchronous  terminal. 

The  three-card  package  can  be  added  to  existing  XTs  as  a  field  up¬ 
grade  (IBM  swears  they  did  not  change  a  "single  wire"  on  the  XT  chas¬ 
sis  to  make  the  new  machine). 

The  XT/370's  software  environment  is  controlled  by  a  supervisory 
program  called  VM/PC.  At  the  toggle  of  a  key  (sometimes  two  tog¬ 
gles),  the  user  can  switch  between  standard  DOS  2.0  and  the  S/370 
VM/CMS  operating  system.  While  logged  on  to  DOS,  the  user  faces  a 
standard  640K  XT  with  one  or  two  ten-megabyte  Winchester  disks  and 
the  usual  complement  of  floppy  disk  drives.  When  logged  on  to  VM/ 
CMS,  that  same  user  looks  at  a  monstrous  four-megabyte  (4M)  virtual- 
memory  machine  with  512K  of  real  memory  available,  using  the  same 
disk  configuration.  The  paging  required  for  virtual  memory  is  done  on 
the  Winchester  disk. 

The  DOS  2.0  environment  operates  just  as  you'd  expect  it  to.  Any 
application  currently  available  should  run  without  problems,  and  IBM 
implied  that  any  current  expansion  cards  you  may  have  could  be  left  in 
place,  although  it's  clear  that  you  have  to  use  the  new  IBM  memory 
card  for  the  S/370  environment  to  work  correctly  (it  requires  special 
memory  busing  in  order  for  it  to  switch  address  spaces). 


ACCOUNTANT’S 

SOFTWARE 

FOR  IBM-PC  COMPUTERS 


If  you  are  an  accountant  and  use  an  IBM-PC  computer 
in  your  practice,  you  need  our  software!  Before  you  pur¬ 
chase  your  next  program,  take  a  look  at  our  aggressive¬ 
ly  priced  software  designed  for  the  professional  accountant, 
including: 

CLIENTWRITE-UP 
1040  TAX  PREPARATION 
STATE  TAX  PREPARATION 
INCOMETAX  PLANNER 
AFTER-THE-FACT  PAYROLL 
CLIENT  INFORMATION  SYSTEM 
FORM  #1099  GENERATOR 
AMORTIZATION 

All  programs  are  written  by  accountants,  for  accountants 
and  are  in  use  in  accounting  offices  throughout  the 
country. 

Get  the  most  out  of  your  computer  by  using  our  ac¬ 
countant-oriented  software.  Call  or  write  for  our  current 
catalog. 


SOFTWARE  SYSTEMS,  INC. 

146  North  Broad  Street 
Griffith,  Indiana  46319 

(219)  924-3522  _ 


TIME  &  BILLING 
CLIENT  MAILLIST 
PAYROLL  PREPARATION 
WORD  PROCESSING 
ELECTRONIC  WORKSHEET 
ACCOUNT  ANALYSIS 
&  MANY  MORE! 


softcilk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


77 


The  VM/CMS  environment  operates  as  a  single-user  version  of  the 
normally  time-shared  mainframe  system.  It  is  limited  to  4M  of  virtual 
memory  (which  is  the  practical  limit  in  most  time-sharing  shops,  even 
though  the  system  architecture  allows  for  16M)  and  cannot  run  slave 
operating  systems  (standard  VM/CMS  can  run  other  mainframe  sys¬ 
tems  such  as  DOS/VSE  and  MVS).  However,  IBM  claimed  that  it 
hasn't  found  a  VM/CMS  application  that  won't  run  on  the  XT/370. 
The  machine  yields  the  power  of  a  low-end  4300  mainframe  when  in 
VM/CMS  mode. 

Files  can  be  shared  between  DOS  and  VM/CMS  on  the  Winchester 
disk  or  the  floppies.  Data  can  also  be  transferred  between  the  XT/370 
and  the  host  processor,  and  VM/CMS  applications  can  be  up-  and 
down-loaded  between  the  host  and  the  XT/370.  The  XT/370  can  also 
operate  as  a  standard  3270  terminal. 

Targeted  users  of  the  new  machine  are  data  processing  profession¬ 
als,  the  engineering  and  scientific  communities,  and  business  profes¬ 
sionals  using  VM/CMS  in-house.  As  the  XT/370's  primary  benefits 
IBM  cited  flexibility  and  increased  computing  power  for  the  end  user. 
The  biggest  benefit  of  all  for  IBM  mainframe  users  is  that  the  XT/370 
will  help  protect  their  substantial  investment  (in  the  billions  of  dollars) 
in  System/370  software. 

Data  processing  managers  have  been  after  IBM  to  provide  a  com¬ 
patible  micro  to  stem  the  onslaught  of  pc  users  who  are  demanding 
customized  link-ups  to  their  mainframes  and  to  protect  access  to  corpo¬ 
rate  databases.  The  XT/370  fulfills  this  need  and  more. 

It  also  substantially  reduces  the  cost  of  providing  mainframe  pro¬ 
grammers  a  workbench  environment  for  applications  development 
and  testing.  IBM  has  never  successfully  provided  a  minicomputer  envi¬ 
ronment  to  fill  this  need.  With  the  XT/370  in  their  product  line  they  no 
longer  need  to. 


PROTECT  &  ORGANIZE 


The  COMPUTER  ESCORT  is  custom  designed  with 
optimum  quality  and  utility  offering  features  such  as: 

•  Secures  the  IBM  PC,  via  a  detachable  adapter  plate,  to  the  low  pro¬ 
file  lower  shelf  unit  which  is  secured  to  your  table  top  via  a 
separate  detachable  adapter  plate. 

•  Keyboard  storage  behind  locked  front  panel  with  optional  sliding 
keyboard  shelf. 

•  Optional  POWER  SENTRY  provides  control  of  4  a.c.  outlets  with  a 
keylock  switch.  All  4  outlets  offer  your  computer  and  peripherals 
protection  with  a  state-of-the-art  transient  suppressor  and  fuse. 

•  Rear  cover  hides  excess  cables  stored  in  the  rear  chamber  and 
restricts  access  to  the  a.c.  outlets  when  the  POWER  SENTRY  or 
other  power  strip  is  used. 

•  Optional  top  shelf  unit  secures  your  monitor  directly  or  via  an  op¬ 
tional  ball  bearing  swivel  adapter  plate. 

•  Precision  heavy  duty  welded  steel  construction  thruout  is  enhanced 
with  textured  enamel  finish  color  matched  to  the  IBM  PC. 

•  Designed  for  easy  end  user  installation  saving  you  both  time  and 
money. 

APPLE  I!  OWNERS  —  SEE  THE  NEW  COOL  STACK™  —  SENTRY  II. 

IBM  is  a  trademark  of  International  Business  Machines  Co. 

COMPUTER  ESCORT  and  COOL  STACK  are  trademarks  of  FMJ  INC.  Patents  Pending. 

For  more  information  on  these  and  other  fine  FMJ  products,  see  your  dealer  or: 

FMJ,  Inc.,  P.O.  Box  5281,  Torrance,  CA  90510  (213)  325-1900  DEALER  INQUIRIES  invited 


NEW  TERMINAL 
DDES  WINDOWS 


At  the  same  news  conference,  IBM  announced  the  3270-PC,  an¬ 
other  major  pc-based  machine.  The  3270-pc  is  a  hydra-headed  3270 
terminal  that  can  be  logged  on  to  as  many  as  seven  concurrent  applica¬ 
tions.  The  user  can  be  attached  to  up  to  four  host  processor  tasks,  one 
normal  DOS  task,  and  two  PC  Notepad  (a  new  scratchpad-type  appli¬ 
cation)  jobs  at  the  same  time.  The  display  screens  from  each  applica¬ 
tion  can  be  viewed  separately  or  can  be  windowed  on  top  of  one  other, 
a  la  Xerox  Star  or  Apple  Lisa.  Any  data  item  can  be  transferred  from 
one  application  to  another  via  the  screen  windows.  The  cursor  control 
keys  and  other  keys  control  window  and  data  movement. 

The  3270-PC  is  a  standard  pc  enhanced  by  a  new  color  monitor  and 
keyboard.  The  IBM  representative  mentioned  "new  logic,"  but  it  was 
unclear  whether  this  meant  a  new  processor  or  different  BIOS  chips. 
The  monitor  is  an  eight-color  model  offering  monochrome-quality  res¬ 
olution  and  medium-resolution  graphics.  It  has  a  fourteen-inch  screen 
and  is  mounted  on  a  tilt/swivel  base.  The  new  monitor  is  not  available 
for  standard  pcs,  but  the  new  machine  can  use  the  standard  pc  mono¬ 
chrome  monitor. 

The  keyboard  looks  like  a  standard  pc  keyboard  with  a  bad  over¬ 
bite.  IBM  has  merged  the  standard  model  with  all  the  keys  available  on 
their  3270  terminals  for  a  total  of  122  (!)  keys.  Those  who  think  the  pc 
doesn't  have  enough  keys  will  be  pleased  with  the  new  keyboard. 

The  3270-PC  also  answers  the  needs  of  mainframe  data  processing 
managers  who  are  plagued  with  user  requests  to  merge  data  from 
different  applications.  Shops  typically  have  applications  where  data 
transfer  or  merging  is  critical  for  business  reasons  but  impossible  for 
technical  reasons.  The  3270-PC  fills  this  need  quite  well,  although  it 
will  be  a  while  before  applications  can  actually  take  data  from  a  merged 
screen  and  bring  it  back  to  the  mainframe  or  pc  database.  But  the  capa¬ 
bility  exists  at  the  pc  end  of  things,  including  the  capability  of  merging 
data  from  DOS  applications  with  a  CICS  or  IMS  system. 

Two  other  important  pc  announcements  were  the  introductions  of 
the  3279  (color)  version  of  the  bisynchronous  communications  expan¬ 
sion  card  and  the  companion  pc  enhancement  for  the  3279  terminal. 
These  are  both  functionally  equivalent  to  the  3278  (monochrome)  ex¬ 
pansion  cards  announced  earlier  this  year.  Other  announcements  in¬ 
cluded  a  new  high-end  8100  computer  (the  8150)  and  enhancements  to 
IBM's  SNA  communications  architecture  that  facilitate  editable  and 
final  document  interchange  among  IBM's  various  office  automation 
systems,  such  as  the  Datamaster. 

The  new  pc-based  machines  are  attractively  priced.  The  XT/370  is 
priced  at  $10,000  with  one  Winchester  disk,  or  $13,000  with  two,  and 
the  expansion  cards  can  be  purchased  separately  for  $3,000.  The  3270- 
PC  ranges  in  price  from  $4,000  to  $7,000,  depending  on  disk  configura¬ 
tion,  and  the  new  color  monitor  goes  for  $950.  Software  is  priced 
separately;  the  VM/CMS  price  varies,  depending  on  the  customer's  ex¬ 
isting  mainframe  contract.  Both  machines  will  be  available  next  year. 

Whatever  else  you  do,  don't  go  charging  off  to  ComputerLand  or 
your  local  IBM  Product  Center  to  order  your  XT/370  expansion  cards, 
XT/370,  or  3270-PC.  They  won't  be  available  there  now  or  in  the  fore¬ 
seeable  future.  These  are  products  of  IBM's  National  Accounts  Divi¬ 
sion  and  are  clearly  for  the  mainframe  community's  use.  The  reason  is 
clear:  The  XT/370  and  3270-PC  are  so  powerful  when  linked  to  main¬ 
frames  that  improper  use  could  spell  danger  for  the  integrity  of  any 
corporation's  data  resource.  Computer  crime  has  been  on  the  upsurge 
lately  and,  in  the  wrong  hands,  these  babies  are  atom  bombs!  ▲ 


78 


softolk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


RESTON 

INTRODUCES 

MICRO 

LEARNING 

SYSTEMS" 


IBM",  IBM  Personal  Computer'',,  end  TX-2-Q  are  registered 
trade  marks  of  Inlernotiond  Business  Machines. 
VlSlCALC  '  is  a  trademark  of  V15ICQRP. 
dBase  11’“  is  a  trademark  af  Ashton  Tate. 
MultiPfon"  Is  a  trademark  of  Microsoft. 
Micro  Learning  Systems  '  is  a  trademark  of  Reston  Publishing, 


You  can't  leorn  to  fly  a  plane  just  by  reading  about  it.  The 
same  goes  for  using  your  personal  computer.  That's  why 
Micra  Learning  Systems'*  created  a  new  series  of 
microcomputer  training  programs,  the  TeacIV”  series.  They're 
interactive,  computer-based  programs  that  teach  you  to  use 
your  computer  ON  your  computer.  Each  program  is  your 
private  teacher,  guiding  you  through  a  series  of  customized, 
self-paced  lessons.  Graphic  displays  moke  [earning  easy,  ond 
the  source  material  becomes  your  reference  for  yeors  to  came. 
Micro  Learning  5ystems™troining  programs  make  complex 
hardware  and  software  truly  "user-friendly'1.  You'll  save  time 
ond  money  leorning  how  to  get  the  most  out  of  your  micro¬ 
computer  investment — the  easy  way — with  Micro  Learning 
Systems  troining. 

Micro  Learning  Systems  presents  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computers 
The  IBM  "  Teoch  Program  dBase  IT"  Teach 
Teach  Program  for  VISICAIC*  Multi  Plan™  Teach 
The  BASIC  Teach  Program  XT’2.0™  Teach 

Reston  So^twane 

A  Prentice-Hall  Company 
11480  Sunset  Hills  Rood 
Reston,  Virginia  22090 

Available  ot  locof  computer  and 

software  stores  or  order  directly  from  Reston  at  (BOO)  336-0338 


SAVE  YOUR 

•  MONITOR 

■SCREEN! 


A, 


t  this  very  moment 
your  video  monitor  or  IBM 
Monochrome  Display  may 
be  in  danger!  The  bright 
clear  image  you  see  on  your 
screen,  if  left  alone  long 
enough,  will  bum  itself  into 
the  surface  of  the  screen. 
How's  that,  you  say? 

A  Cry  for  Help*  The  image  you  see  on  your 
monitor  is  created  by  a  stream  of  electrons  that 
bombard  the  screen.  The  inside  surface  of  the 
screen  is  coated  with  a  material  known  as  phos¬ 
phor,  and  wherever  the  electrons  strike  this  surface 
the  phosphor  glows  green,  white,  or  some  other 
color  (the  color  depends  on  the  type  of  phosphor 
used).  But  the  same  electrons 
do  more  than  create  an  im¬ 
age.  They  also  slowly  erode 
the  phosphor  layer.  Eventu¬ 
ally  this  process  leads  to 
holes  in  the  screen— places 
where  the  phosphor  has  been 
etched  away  by  the  elec¬ 
trons,  leaving  black  regions 
behind. 

What  can  be  done  to  pre¬ 
vent  such  damage? 

The  simplest  preventive  is  to  turn  down  the  in¬ 
tensity  before  you  walk  away  from  your  computer. 
If  you  don't  see  an  image  on  the  screen,  itrll  be  safe 
from  burn  damage.  But  although  simple,  this 
method  is  unreliable.  Itrs  too  easy  to  leave  the  dis¬ 
play  on  for  "just  a  few  minutes/'  only  to  return  sev¬ 
eral  hours  later  to  find  the  screen  still  brightly  lit. 

So  in  this  article  well  build  a  machine-language 
program,  called  Sc m save, com,  that  will  provide  a 


SOCHA’S  TOOLBOX 
BY  JOHN  SOCHA 


better  form  of  burnout  protection.  We'll  use  a  Basic 
program  to  create  the  .com  file,  so  you  won  t  need 
to  know  anything  about  machine  language, 

Scmsave  does  its  work  quietly;  if  you  leave  your 
screen  alone  for  three  minutes,  the  program  turns 
the  display  off  until  the  next  time  you  hit  a  key.  Any 
keystroke  at  all  — including  the  control,  alt,  and  sec¬ 
retarial  shift  keys— will  reactivate  the  screen,  so 
you  can  bring  the  display  back  to  life  without 
affecting  a  running  program. 

First  let's  see  how  Scmsave  manages  to  turn  the 
brightness  off.  After  all,  we  know  pcs  don't  have 
robot  arms,  so  there  must  be  some  other  way  to 
turn  off  the  display.  And  there  is. 

Locating  the  Victim  Inside  your  IBM  pc  is  an 
input/ootput  port  that  controls  various  functions 
on  the  display  adapter.  This 
port  resides  at  3DB  hex  for 
the  color/graphics  adapter 
and  3BS  for  the  mono¬ 
chrome  adapter.  Figure  1 
gives  a  list  of  the  bits  in  this 
byte  and  explains  briefly 
how  they  control  the  screen, 

„  For  present  purposes,  we're 
'%■  . //  interested  only  in  bit  2, 

which  turns  the  display  on 
and  off. 

The  following  Basic  program  turns  this  bit  off 
and  then  turns  it  on  again  after  a  short  delay;  the 
display  will  blank  for  a  few  seconds  after  you  type 
run. 

10  DEF  SEG  =  &H40 
20  PORT  =  256  *  P EEK( & H64 )  + 
PEEK(&H63)  +  4 

30  OUT  PORT  (PEEKf&H65)  AND  &HF7) 
40  FOR  I  =  1  TO  1000  :  NEXT  1 


SOftOlk  for  the  /BM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


HI 


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50  OUT  PORT,  PEEK(&H65) 

60  END 

All  we  need  is  a  machine-language  program  to  turn  off  this  bit  when 
three  minutes  have  elapsed  with  no  activity  from  the  keyboard  or 
on  the  display  right?  Well,  this  is  true  if  you  have  a  color /graphics 
adapter.  But  IBM  made  a  slight  goof  when  it  designed  the  mono¬ 
chrome  adapter;  bit  2  doesn't  affect  the  cursor. 

Here  is  a  second  Basic  program,  identical  to  the  first  one  except 
that  it  turns  the  cursor  on  during  the  run.  If  you  turn  off  the  video 
display  by  setting  bit  2  to  0,  the  display  should  blank  and  the  cursor 
should  disappear  with  everything  else.  On  the  monochrome  display 
it  doesn't!  Run  this  program  on  a  monochrome  display  and  you'll 
see  a  blinking  cursor  left  behind. 


10  DIM  CHECK(39) 

20  FOR  1  =  1  TO  39  :  CHECK{1>=0  :  NEXT  I 
30  PRINT  "Checking"; 

40  FOR  1  =  1  TO  39 
50  FOR  1  =  1  TO  8 
60  READ  BYTE 

70  CHECK(I)  =  CHECK(I)  XOR  BYTE 

80  NEXT  J 

90  PRINT 

100  NEXT  I 

110  PRINT 

120  LINECHECK  =  0 

130  FOR  1=1  TO  39 

140  READ  CHECK 

150  LINECHECK  =  L1NECHECK  XOR  CHECK 

160  IF  CHECK(I)  (>  CHECK  THEN  PRINT  "Data  in  Line";1000  +  10*(l-l);"may  be  bad." 
170  NEXT  I 

180  IF  LINECHECK  (>  16  THEN  PRINT  "Data  bad  in  lines  2010-2050." 

190  OPEN  "scmsave.com"  AS  #1  LEN  =  1 
200  PRINT  "Writing.  .  ." 

210  FIELD  #1,1  AS  BYTES 

220  RESTORE 

230  FOR  1=1  TO  310 

240  READ  BYTE:  LSET  BYTES  =  CHR5(  BYTE)  :  PUT  #1 
250  NEXT  I 
260  CLOSE 

270  PRINT  "SCRNSAVE.COM  created" 

280  END 


1000  DATA 

233, 

212, 

0/ 

0, 

0/ 

0, 

0, 

0 

1010  DATA 

0, 

0/ 

0/ 

0, 

0. 

0, 

0/ 

204 

1020  DATA 

12, 

0/ 

0/ 

0, 

0/ 

80, 

30, 

140 

1030  DATA 

200, 

142, 

216, 

255, 

14, 

17, 

1, 

116 

1040  DATA 

15, 

127, 

6, 

199, 

6, 

17, 

1, 

0 

1050  DATA 

0, 

31/ 

88, 

46, 

255, 

46, 

3, 

1 

1060  DATA 

83, 

81, 

82, 

180, 

3, 

156, 

255, 

30 

1070  DATA 

11, 

1, 

137, 

14, 

19, 

1, 

181, 

15 

1080  DATA 

177, 

0, 

180, 

1, 

156, 

255, 

30, 

11 

1090  DATA 

1, 

90, 

89, 

91, 

82, 

184, 

64, 

0 

1100  DATA 

142, 

216, 

139, 

22, 

99, 

0, 

131, 

194 

1110  DATA 

4, 

160, 

101, 

0, 

36, 

247, 

238, 

90 

1120  DATA 

235, 

199, 

80, 

82, 

30, 

140, 

200, 

142 

1130  DATA 

216, 

131, 

62, 

17, 

1, 

0, 

127, 

33 

1140  DATA 

30, 

184, 

64, 

0, 

142, 

216, 

139, 

22 

1150  DATA 

99, 

0, 

131, 

194, 

4, 

160, 

101, 

0 

1160  DATA 

12, 

8, 

238, 

31, 

81, 

139, 

14, 

19 

1170  DATA 

1, 

180, 

1, 

156, 

255, 

30, 

11/ 

1 

1180  DATA 

89, 

161, 

15, 

1, 

163, 

17, 

1, 

31 

1190  DATA 

90, 

88, 

195, 

232, 

196, 

255, 

46, 

255 

1200  DATA 

46, 

7, 

1, 

80, 

81, 

30, 

184, 

64 

1210  DATA 

0, 

142, 

216, 

161, 

16, 

0, 

36, 

48 

1220  DATA 

185, 

7, 

6, 

60, 

48, 

117, 

3, 

185 

1230  DATA 

12, 

11/ 

180, 

1, 

156, 

46, 

255, 

30 

1240  DATA 

11/ 

1, 

31, 

89, 

88, 

195, 

232, 

153 

1250  DATA 

255, 

156, 

46, 

255, 

30, 

11/ 

1, 

10 

1260  DATA 

228, 

117, 

3, 

232, 

205, 

255, 

207, 

184 

1270  DATA 

0, 

0, 

142, 

216, 

250, 

161, 

32, 

0 

1280  DATA 

46, 

163, 

3, 

1, 

161, 

34, 

0/ 

46 

1290  DATA 

163, 

5, 

1, 

199, 

6, 

32, 

0, 

21 

1300  DATA 

1, 

140, 

14, 

34, 

0, 

161, 

36, 

0 

1310  DATA 

46, 

163, 

7, 

1, 

161, 

38, 

0, 

46 

1320  DATA 

163, 

9, 

1, 

199, 

6, 

36, 

0, 

155 

1330  DATA 

1, 

140, 

14, 

38, 

0, 

161, 

64, 

0 

1340  DATA 

46, 

163, 

11, 

1, 

161, 

66, 

0/ 

46 

1350  DATA 

163, 

13/ 

1, 

199, 

6, 

64, 

0, 

198 

1360  DATA 

1, 

140, 

14, 

66, 

0, 

46, 

161, 

15 

1370  DATA 

1, 

46, 

163, 

17, 

1, 

251, 

232, 

114 

1380  DATA 
2000' 

255, 

186, 

215, 

1, 

205, 

39, 

0, 

0 

2010  DATA 

61, 

204, 

206, 

11/ 

167, 

186, 

154, 

37 

2020  DATA 

114, 

243, 

233, 

166, 

250, 

43, 

45, 

227 

2030  DATA 

50, 

195, 

90, 

195, 

207, 

243, 

123, 

225 

2C40  DATA 

166, 

172, 

63, 

45, 

34, 

83, 

36. 

34 

2050  DATA 

213, 

68, 

74, 

232, 

65, 

253, 

121 

Listing  1. 


10  LOCATE  „1  Turn  the  cursor  back  on 
20  DEF  SEC  =  &H40 

30  PORT  =  256  *  PEEK(&H64)  +  PEEK(&H63)  +  4 
40  OUT  PORT,  (PEEK(&H65)  AND  &HF7) 

50  FOR  1  =  1  TO  1000  :  NEXT  I 
60  OUT  PORT,  PEEK(&H65) 

70  END 

No  problem.  Scrnsave  turns  the  cursor  off  and  on  along  with  the 
rest  of  the  display. 

Saving  the  Victim.  The  program  shown  in  listing  1  on  page  83 
builds  Scmsave.com  and  saves  it  to  your  default  drive.  Type  the 
program  in  and  run  it  once  to  generate  Scrnsave.  If  you've  made  an 
error  entering  any  of  the  data  statements,  you'll  get  a  message  indi¬ 
cating  which  line  contains  an  error. 

You  need  only  run  this  program  once  to  build  Scmsave.com,  but 
you  may  wish  to  save  it  (as  Scmsave.bas,  for  example)  just  in  case 
Scmsave.com  doesn't  work  correctly;  you  might  have  an  error 
somewhere  other  than  the  data  statements.  If  the  .com  file  doesn't 
seem  to  work  correctly,  carefully  check  lines  10  through  280  of  the 
Basic  program. 

Scmsave.com  is  a  machine-language  program  that  attaches  itself 
to  DOS  each  time  you  run  it;  because  you  consume  a  little  bit  of 
memory  with  each  such  attachment,  you  should  run  it  once  only— 
perhaps  at  the  time  you  start  DOS.  To  attach  Scmsave.com  to  DOS 
and  save  your  screen,  just  type  scrnsave  after  the  DOS  prompt.  But 
don't  do  it  just  yet. 

You'll  probably  want  to  place  the  line  "scrnsave"  in  your  Autoex¬ 
ec.bat  file  so  that  the  program  runs  once  each  time  you  boot  DOS.  If 
you're  also  using  ProKey,  it's  best  to  run  Scrnsave  ahead  of  ProKey 
so  the  latter  won't  be  able  to  overwrite  Scrnsave. 

Checking  the  Pulse.  Now  run  Scrnsave  once  to  attach  it  to  DOS. 


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You  won't  see  any  change,  so  just  sit  back  and  wait  for  three  min¬ 
utes.  After  exactly  three  minutes  the  screen  will  blank.  Just  push  one 
of  the  shift  keys  to  restore  the  display. 

Now  let's  try  a  slightly  different  example.  Enter  and  run  the  fol¬ 
lowing  Basic  program.  You'll  see  the  display  blank  after  three  min¬ 
utes  (Scmsave  does  this),  and  about  a  second  later  it  will  turn  on 
again.  Why  does  it  turn  back  on?  The  print  statement  in  line  20 
sends  characters  to  the  display  about  three  minutes  and  one  second 
after  you  type  run  (this  is  the  case  on  an  XT;  on  a  Compaq  you  may 
find  your  screen  dark  a  little  longer  than  one  second).  Any  time  a 
program  sends  characters  to  the  screen,  Scmsave  turns  the  display 
back  on  again  and  resets  its  three-minute  timer — leaving  you  just 
enough  time  to  boil  an  egg. 

10  FOR  I  =  1  TO  140000!  :  NEXT  I 

20  SOUND  1000,5  :  PRINT  'The  display  should  be  on" 

30  END 

How  Do  It  Do  It?  How  does  Scmsave  do  all  this?  The  clock 
inside  your  pc  ticks  18.2  times  per  second.  Scmsave  contains  a 
three-minute  counter  that  starts  at  3276 — the  number  of  clock  ticks 
for  three  minutes.  On  each  tick  of  the  clock,  Scmsave  subtracts  one 
from  this  count,  and  it  turns  off  the  screen  when  it  reaches  zero.  We 
need  some  way  to  reset  this  counter  while  we  are  using  the  pc,  so 
Scmsave  also  intercepts  two  interrupts  in  addition  to  the  interrupts 
generated  by  the  clock. 

Each  time  you  push  or  release  a  key,  the  keyboard  sends  an  inter¬ 
rupt  signal  to  the  pc.  Scmsave  intercepts  this  interrupt;  each  time 
you  push  or  release  a  key,  Scmsave  resets  its  counter  to  3276  (three 
minutes)  before  passing  control  to  the  ROM  BIOS  routines  that 
read  keystrokes.  Scmsave  also  resets  its  counter  to  3276  every  time 
a  program  sends  characters  to  the  screen.  By  intercepting  these  last 
two  interrupts,  Scmsave  can  tell  when  you  need  to  have  the  screen 
active,  so  it  won't  shut  out  the  lights  unless  you  sit  back  or  walk 


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Calling  Dr.  Post,  Dr.  Mortimer  Post.  Now  for  the  gory  details.  If 
you  have  no  interest  in  assembly  language  programs,  then  enjoy  the 
rest  of  this  issue. 

The  assembly  language  program  is  shown  in  listing  2.  Scmsave 
intercepts  interrupts  using  the  daisy  chain  method  that  was  used  in 
Scrollk.com  (for  more  details,  see  "The  Scroll  Lock  Mystery 
Solved,"  Softalk ,  May  1983).  Other  details  of  Scmsave  are  fairly 
straightforward.  The  3x8  register  for  the  6845  chip  is  a  write-only 
register,  so  if  we  want  to  change  only  bit  2  of  this  register,  we  need  to 
know  the  state  of  the  other  bits.  Fortunately,  the  ROM  BIOS  rou¬ 
tines  store  the  current  state  of  the  3x8  register  in  memory  location 
465H.  If  you  have  both  display  adapters,  this  address  contains  the 
mode  for  the  active  display  adapter. 

There's  a  bug  in  the  ROM  BIOS.  The  INT  10  call  to  read  the 
cursor  position  returns  the  cursor  in  the  CX  register — or  so  the  tech¬ 
nical  reference  states.  It  turns  out  this  is  true  only  when  some  pro¬ 
gram  has  already  set  the  cursor  type.  Intitially  the  BIOS  returns  a 
constant:  067H  for  older  pcs  and  607H  for  newer  ones. 

The  procedure  Set  cursor  mode  sets  the  cursor  type  to  0607H  for 
the  color/graphics  adapter  and  OBOCH  for  the  monochrome;  in 
other  words,  it  establishes  an  underline  cursor.  Scmsave  sets  the 
cursor  type  when  you  first  run  Scrnsave  and  again  when  any  pro¬ 
gram  changes  the  display  mode.  A 


AAA 

i 

j  j  Enable  blink  attribute 

I  !  I  640  by  200  black  and  white 

«-*—•**"*-“ — -  Enable  video 

l - Select  black-and-white  mode 

«j  I - Select  320  by  200  graphics 

I - Select  00  by  25  alpha 

- -*w - unused 

- - - - - - — - unused 

Figure  1.  Mode  register  for  display  adapter. 

Bit  2  turns  the  video  on  and  off. 


These  are  the  interrupt  vectors  for  the  dock,  keyboard  and  video  — io 
calls. 


VECTORS  SEGMENT  AT  0H 

ORG  8H*4 

TIME -OF -DAY -VECTOR  LABEL  DWORD  ;Clock  interrupt,  18.2  per  sec. 

ORG  9H*4 

KEYBOARD- INT -VECTOR  LABEL  DWORD 

ORG  10H*4 

VIDEO -IO- VECTOR  LABEL  DWORD 

VECTORS  ENDS 


I 


This  is  the  data  area  starting  at  400H  used  by  the  ROM  BIOS 
routines.  ADDR  — 6845  contains  the  base  address,  3x4,  of  the  current 
display  adapter  and  CRT  — MODE  — SET  contains  the  current  setting  of 
the  display  mode  —  the  3x8  register.  Here  x  is  B  for  the  monochrome 
display  adapter,  and  D  for  the  color-graphics  adapter. 


ROM  _  BIOS  -  DATA  SEGMENT  AT  40H 

ORG  10H 

EQUIP -RAG  DW  ? 

ORG  60H 

CURSOR -MODE  DW  ? 

ORG  63H 

ADDR— 6845  DW  ? 

CRT -MODE -SET  DB  ? 

ROM -BIOS -DATA  ENDS 


;Used  to  determine  display  type 

;Current  cursor  mode  (start,  stop  line) 

;Base  address  for  active  display  card 
; Current  setting  of  3x8  register 


This  is  the  start  of  the  local  data  and  executable  code. 


CODE  — SEG 

ASSUME 
ORG 
BEGIN;  JMP 

SEGMENT 

CS:CODE_ SEG 

300H 

INIT—  VECTORS 

.■Initialize  vectors  and  attach  to  DOS 

ROM -TIME  _OF_ 
ROM -KEYBOARD 
ROM  — VIDEO— IO- 

DAY -INT  DD 
-INT  DD 

-INT  DD 

; Addresses  for  ROM  routines 

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TIMER -DELAY 
THREE  _  MIN  _  COUNTER 


OLD -CURSOR-TYPE 


DW  0CCCH  ; Delay  before  turning  off  video 

DW  ?  ;CIock  ticks  in  3  minutes 

DW  0  ;Hold  the  old  cursor  type 


Turn  the  video  display  off  after  three  minutes  of  no  use. 

Calls:  ROM -TIME -OF -DAY -INT 

Reads:  ADDR-6845,  CRT- MODE -SET 

Writes:  THREE- MIN -COUNTER,  OLD -CURSOR -TYPE 


RET 

RESET -COUNTER  ENDP 

INTERCEPT -KEYBOARD -INT  PROC  NEAR 
ASSUME  DS:NOTHINC 
CALL  RESET  _  COUNTER 

JMP  ROM -KEYBOARD- INT 

INTERCEPT -KEYBOARD -INT  ENDP 


;Reset  the  time-out  counter 
;Pass  control  to  ROM  routine 


This  procedure  resets  the  cursor  type  to  the  default  type  for  the 
display  adapter  in  use:  607H  for  the  color/ graphics  adapter  and 
0C0BH  for  the  monochrome  display  adapter. 


SET  _  CURSOR  -  MODE  PROC  NEAR 


PUSH  AX 

PUSH  CX 

PUSH  DS 

MOV  AX,  ROM- 

MOV  DS,AX 

ASSUME  DS:ROM_l 

MOV  AX,  EQUIP  - 

AND  AL,30H 

MOV  CX.607H 

CMP  AL,30H 

JNE  COLOR -A 

MOV  CX,0B0CH 

COLOR -ACTIVE: 

MOV  AH,1 

PUSHF 

CALL  ROM-VID 

POP  DS 

POP  CX 

POP  AX 

RET 

SET  -  CURSOR  -  MODE  ENDP 


AX 

CX 

DS 

AX,  ROM -BIOS -DATA 
DS,AX 

DS:ROM_  BIOS -DATA 

AX,EQUIP-FLAG 

AL,30H 

CX.607H 

AL,30H 

COLOR -ACTIVE 
CX,0B0CH 


ROM  -VIDEO  -IO-  INT 

DS 

CX 

AX 


;Point  to  ROM  BIOS  data  area 

;Determine  which  adapter  is  active 
;Isolate  adapter  information 
;Set  for  color/graphics  adapter 
;Is  monochrome  display  active? 

;No,  set  cursor  type 

;Cursor  mode  for  monochrome  display 

;CaU  for  set-cursor-type 

,-SimuIate  INT  10  with  PUSHF  and  CALL 


This  procedure  resets  the  time-out  counter,  and  passes  control  on 
to  the  ROM  VIDEO— 10  routines. 


INTERCEPT  _  VIDEO  -  IO 


PROC  NEAR 


ASSUME 

CALL 

DS:NOTHING 

RESET -COUNTER 

;Reset  time-out  counter 

PUSHF 

CALL 

ROM  -  VIDEO -IO- INT 

Simulate  INT  10  with  PUSHF  and  CALL 
;Do  VIDEO -IO  function 

OR 

AH,AH 

;Asking  for  set-mode  function? 

JNZ 

NOT -MODE -SET 

;No,  then  return 

CALL 

SET- CURSOR -MODE 

;Yes,  then  set  cursor  mode  to  default 

NOT -MODE -SET: 

IRET 

INTERCEPT- VIDEO -IO  ENDP 


;  This  procedure  initializes  the  interrupt  vectors. 


This  procedure  resets  the  timer  count  to  0CCCH  and  turns  the  display 
on  if  it  was  off. 


RESET -COUNTER 
PUSH 
PUSH 
PUSH 
MOV 
MOV 
ASSUME 
CMP 
JG 

PUSH 

MOV 

MOV 

ASSUME 

MOV 

ADD 

MOV 

OR 

OUT 

POP 

ASSUME 

PUSH 

MOV 

MOV 

PUSHF 

CALL 

POP 

VIDEO -NOT -OFF: 
MOV 
MOV 


PROC  NEAR 

AX 

DX 

DS 

AX,CS 

DS,AX 

DS:CODE  — SEC 

THREE -MIN -COUNTERS  ;W 

VIDEO -NOT -OFF  ;N 

DS  ;Y< 

AX,  ROM  _  BIOS  -  DATA 
DS,AX 

DS:ROM_  BIOS- DATA 

DX,  ADDR  _  6845  ;G 

DX,4  ;IC 

AL,CRT_  MODE -SET 

AL,8  ;Ti 

DX,AL 

DS 

DS:CODE_SEG 

CX  ;N 

CX,OLD_  CURSOR  — TYPE 
AH,1  ;R 

;Pi 

ROM  _  VIDEO -IO- INT  ;1V 

CX 

AX,TIMER_  DELAY 

THREE  — MIN—  COUNTER, AX 


;Was  the  display  off? 

;No,  then  just  reset  counter 
;Yes,  then  turn  video  back  on 


;Get  base  address  for  display  adapter 
;IO  address  for  3x8  register 


;Turn  video  on  again 


;Now  restore  the  cursor 

;Restore  the  old  cursor  type 

;Push  flags  to  simulate  INT  with  CALL 

;Must  use  call  since  INT  10  points  here 


POP  DS 

POP  DX 

POP  AX 


INIT- VECTORS 

PROC  NEAR 

ASSUME 

DS-.VECTORS 

MOV 

AX,VECTORS  ;Set  up  the  data  segment  for  vectors 

MOV 

DS,AX 

CLI 

;Don't  allow  interrupts 

MOV 

AX,TIME  _  OF  _  DAY— 

VECTOR  ;Save  addresses  of  BIOS  routines 

MOV 

ROM  _  TIME  -  OF  -  DAY  _  INT,  AX 

MOV 

AX,TIME  _OF  -  DAY  -  VECTOR!  2  J 

MOV 

ROM  _  TIME  -  OF  _  DAY  _  INT!  2 ],  AX 

MOV 

TIME -OF -DAY -VECTOR,  OFFSET  INTERCEPT -TIME- OF -DAY 

MOV 

TIME-  OF  -  DAY  _  VECTOR[2|,CS 

MOV 

AX, KEYBOARD  _  INT  _  VECTOR 

MOV 

ROM  -  KEYBOARD  _  INT,  AX 

MOV 

AX, KEYBOARD- INT- VECT0R[2j 

MOV 

ROM  _  KEYBOARD  _  INT[  2),  AX 

MOV 

KEYBOARD -INT -VECTOR,  OFFSET  INTERCEPT -KEYBOARD- INT 

MOV 

KEYBOARD  -  INT  _  VECTOR!  2), CS 

MOV 

AX,  VIDEO  -  IO  _  VECTOR 

MOV 

ROM  -  VIDEO  -  IO  -  INT,  AX 

MOV 

AX,  VIDEO -IO- VECTOR!  2) 

MOV 

ROM  — VIDEO  — 10  —  INT)  2],  AX 

MOV 

VIDEO- 10 -VECTOR,  OFFSET  INTERCEPT- VIDEO- IO 

MOV 

VIDEO  _  IO  -  VECTOR!  2],CS 

MOV 

AX, TIMER  — DELAY  ;Set  the  delay  to  3  minutes 

MOV 

THREE -MIN  -  COUNTER,  AX 

STI 

;AUow  interrupts  again 

CALL 

SET— CURSOR  — MODE  ;Set  cursor  mode  to  default 

MOV 

DX, OFFSET  INIT- VECTORS  ;End  of  resident  portion 

INT 

27H  ;Terminate  but  stay  resident 

INIT- VECTORS 

ENDP 

CODE  _  SEG 

ENDS 

END 

BEGIN 

Listing  2.  ▲ 

SOftClIk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


NOW 

POWERFUL  CAD  CAPABILITIES 
ON  YOUR  IBM  P.C. 


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VERT  2001 
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ALL  M(WE 
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REC1  ROT 
REC2!  CHS 
REC3  INFO 
EEL-4  SYH 
RECS  FILE 
PLOT 
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FIND 
FILL 


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405 


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CADPLAN  has  been  designed  by  experienced  CAD  users  and  developers  to  end  the  tedium  and 
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using  CADPLAN  to  help  increase  the  productivity  and  quality  of  their  design  projects. 

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on  any  computer  screen.  Because 
there’s  never  been  a  computer  built 
by  man  that  could  handle  the  images 
we  produce.  And,  there  never  will  be. 

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imagination  like 
Infocom. 

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imagination 
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in  control  of 
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events.  You’re  con¬ 
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tions  and  logical  puz¬ 
zles  the  like  of  which  you  won't 
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because  they’re  perceived  directly  by 
your  mind’s  eye,  not  through  your 
external  senses.  The  method  to  this 
magic?  We’ve  found  the  way  to  plug 
our  prose  right  into  your  psyche,  and 
catapult  you  into  a  whole  new 


TIMES  saw  fit  to  print  that  our 
DEADLINE1'1  is  “an  amazing  feat 
of  programming."  Even  a  journal  as 
video-oriented  as  ELECTRONIC 
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dimension. 

Take  some  tough  critics’  words 
about  our  words.  SOFTALK,  for 
example,  called  ZORK®  Ill’s  prose 
“far  more  graphic  than  any  depiction 
yet  achieved  by  an  adventure  with 
graphics.’’  And  the  NEW  YORK 


In/  Ken  Landis 


T 

his  month  we  turn 
our  attention  to  a 
i  )  new  subject  For  this 
column— investing 
in  the  stock  market.  In  addition  to  being  one  of 
the  country's  most  common  forms  of  invest¬ 
ing,  the  stock  market  is  also  probably  one  of 
the  most  misunderstood.  And  yet,  if  you're  the 
so-called  average  American,  you  own  stock. 

The  stock  market  is  as  volatile  as  a  run¬ 
away  nuclear  reactor.  Price  movements  that 
years  ago  were  considered  frightening  are 
commonplace  today.  Is  it  any  wonder  that 
there  seems  to  be  a  high  correlation  between 
stock  ownership  and  sleepless  nights  and  head¬ 
aches?  How  can  the  investor  cope?  It's  not 
easy.  And  unless  you've  got  time  to  sit  by  a 
Quotron  machine  constantly,  taking  the  mar¬ 
ket's  pulse  and  adjusting  your  holdings  accord¬ 
ingly,  chances  are  you'll  get  caught  with  your 
proverbial  pants  down  at  least  once  in  a  while. 

One  way  investors  attempt  to  cope  is  by 
formulating  an  investment  strategy  that  takes 
into  account  not  only  changes  in  the  market 
but  also  changes  in  inflation.  As  Britannia  once 
ruled  the  waves,  so  inflation  rules  the  markets, 
Good  news  about  inflation  is  good  news  for 
the  markets  and  for  investors,  and  bad  news 
about  inflation  is  bad  news  for— well,  you  get 
the  picture 

This  month  well  use  the  Harry  Browne  in¬ 
vestment  strategy  and  the  Permanent  Portfolio 
Analyzer  from  C.R.  Hunter  k  Associates  (Cin¬ 
cinnati,  OH)  to  analyze  the  effects  of  inflation 
on  a  diversified  portfolio. 

So  who  is  Harry  Browne?  Browne  is  an  in¬ 
vestment  adviser  who  in  1970  wrote  the  book 
How  You  Can  Profit  from  the  Coming  Devalu¬ 
ation.  This  book  attracted  considerable  atten¬ 
tion  in  financial  circles  and  put  Browne  and  his 
theories  in  the  limelight.  Among  Browne's 
later  books  are  Inflation- Proofing  Your  Invest¬ 
ments  (from  which  the  Portfolio  Analyzers 
theories  are  taken  and  which  he  co-wrote  with 
Terry  Coxon),  Complete  Guide  to  Swiss 
Banks ,  and  New  Profits  from  the  Monetary 
Crisis. 


The  Permanent  Portfolio  Analyzer 


In  1974,  Browne  began  publishing  Harry 
Browne's  Special  Reports,  an  investment 
newsletter.  The  September  23,  1981,  issue, 
which  comes  with  the  Portfolio  Analyzer  soft¬ 
ware,  describes  the  Browne  method  for  creat¬ 
ing  a  permanent  pnrtfolio,  What  is  a 
permanent  portfolio?  It's  a  portfolio  that's  de¬ 
signed  to  survive  and  flourish  under  the  rav¬ 
ages  of  inflation. 

The  theory  is  quite  simple.  By  balancing  the 
assets  in  your  portfolio  to  achieve  what  can  be 
called  the  permanent  mix,  you  can  eliminate 
the  necessity  to  trade  assets  in  and  out  of  your 
portfolio  in  an  attempt  to  increase  your  future 
purchasing  power  (which  is  directly  related  to 
your  profits).  If  your  profits  as  a  percentage  of 
your  portfolio  are  greater  than  the  rate  of  in¬ 
flation,  you  are  making  money;  if  they  are 
lower,  you  are  actually  losing  purchasing 
power  and,  hence,  you  are  losing  money. 

The  major  premise  underlying  Browne's 
strategy  and  this  software  is  that  over  the  next 
ten  years  the  economy  will  be  dominated  by 
one  of  five  states  of  inflation.  The  five  possibili¬ 
ties  Browne  suggests  are  (1)  that  inflation  will 
level  off  somewrhere  around  the  level  it's  at 
now;  (2)  that  it  will  continue  to  rise,  but  in 
surges,  as  it  has  historically;  (3)  that  it  will 
become  uncontrollable  and  runaway;  (4)  that: 
it  will  slowly  ease  down  to  a  very  low  rate;  and 
(5)  that  there  will  be  a  sudden  and  traumatic 
deflation,  leading  to  negative  price  changes. 

Based  on  the  scenario  you  choose,  the  Per¬ 
manent  Portfolio  Analyzer  forecasts  your 
portfolio's  value  and  condition  ten  years  into 
the  future.  The  software  is  set  up  to  use 
Browne's  own  assumptions  about  inflation,  fu¬ 
ture  prices,  and  the  proper  composition  for  a 
portfolio,  but  you  can  alter  it  to  reflect  your 
own  assumptions  if  you  disagree  with  his  num¬ 
bers  or  want  to  test  an  alternate  hypothesis.  In 
addition,  you  can  execute  'what-ifs"  by  chang¬ 
ing  the  information  about  the  composition  of 
your  portfolio. 

If  you  have  no  portfolio,  the  program  gives 
you  the  opportunity  to  choose  between  two 
strategies — balanced  or  go-for-broke— and  to 


specify  the  inflation  condition  you  expect.  It 
then  creates  a  portfolio  for  you  based  on  those 
choices.  The  program  has  even  anticipated  the 
need  for  a  portfolio  based  on  an  uncertain  in¬ 
flation  state. 

All  this  adds  up  to  a  program  that  sounds 
like  a  powerful,  useful  investment  tool.  Let's 
see  if  it  is.  To  test  the  Permanent  Portfolio  Ania- 
lyier,  well  work  with  the  portfolio  of  Mr.  John 
Doe;  it  is  his  portfolio  that's  used  in  the  exam¬ 
ple  provided  in  the  program  documentation. 
But  first,  some  more  information  about  the 
package. 

As  an  aid  to  the  investor,  the  Permanent 
Portfolio  Analyzer  comes  with  a  set  of  data- 
entry  sheets  that  cover  the  investment  catego¬ 
ries  chosen  by  Browme.  These  categories  are 
gold  bullion,  gold  options,  silver  bullion,  sil¬ 
ver  coins,  Swiss  francs,  Swiss  francs  with  in¬ 
terest,  stocks,  leveraged  stocks,  put  options, 
real  estate,  collectibles,  cash,  treasury  bills, 
other  short-term  dollar  holdings,  treasury 
bonds,  other  long-term  dollar  holdings,  short¬ 
term  dollar  debt,  long-term  dollar  debt,  and 
other  investments. 

The  first  thing  you're  likely  to  notice  about 
this  list  is  that,  besides  covering  the  major 
forms  of  investment  we  might  consider,  includ¬ 
ing  currency,  it  also  lists  debt  as  an  investment. 
The  program  considers  the  advantages  or  dis¬ 
advantages  of  borrowing  both  short  and  long 
term  under  the  economic  scenario  you  choose. 
Analysis  may  reveal  that  it  would  be  advanta¬ 
geous  for  you  to  redeploy  your  assets  to  adjust 
your  borrowings.  Unfortunately,  this  analysis 
does  not  keep  account  of  the  tax  consider¬ 
ations  that  such  a  redeployment  would  in¬ 
volve. 

Each  portfolio  can  hold  up  to  two  hundred 
items.  For  a  majority  of  users,  this  is  plenty  of 
capacity,  but  if  you  have  large,  diversified 
portfolios,  you  may  find  the  two-hundred- 
item-per-portfolio  limitation  a  problem.  If  this 
is  the  case,  you'll  have  to  develop  a  classifica¬ 
tion  scheme  to  divide  your  portfolio  into  man¬ 
ageable  parts  and  then  do  some  manual 
consolidations. 


softnlk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  19&3 


oi/v\eo 


HARD  DISK  SYSTEMS  ARE 
THE  SOLUTION  TO: 

•  Reliable  Back-Up  Requirements 

•  Large  Data  Storage  Needs 


CAMEO  large  capacity  high  performance  hard  disk 
systems  are  the  ideal  mass  storage  system  for  use 
in  those  business  environments  where  a  company's 
data  bank  itself  is  understood  to  be  one  of  the  most 
valuable  parts  of  the  whole  micro-computerized  of¬ 
fice  system.  The  data  bank  was  costly  to  acquire  and 
could  be  more  costly  to  replace.  Regular  access  to  it 
is  needed  every  day  without  fail. 

CAMEO'S  subsystem  1 050,  consists  of  40  format¬ 
ted  megabytes  of  on-line  winchester  data  storage 
and  1  □  formatted  megabytes  of  removable  winches¬ 
ter  cartridge  back-up  capability.  In  the  unlikely  event 
of  a  problem  with  the  fixed  winchester  drive  the 
removable  cartridge  drive  can  perform  as  a  fully  op¬ 
erable  full  function  high  performance  on  line  random 
access  winchester  hard  disk  system.  It  provides 
highly  reliable  [full  CRC  error  checking  on  full  spec 
winchester  media]  permanent  off-line  data  storage 
capability  for  permanent  data  archiving. 


CAMEO’S  configuration  options  allow  multiple  com¬ 
puters  to  access  all  areas  of  the  disk  as  well  as 
virtual  RAM  disk  configuration  from  add-on  memory 
boards.  Higher  capacity  systems  and  nationwide 
third  party  maintenance  are  available.  Immediate 
availability  through  CAMEO’S  regional  distributor 
network. 


ism  VICTOR 

Jgte »Bt  NEC 

COmPAU  E3GL6 

A  CAMEO  interface  is  available  for  the  above  as  well 
as  almost  any  brand  of  high  performance  micro  com¬ 
puter  you  are  considering  for  your  office  use. 


Contact  your  local  CAMEO  dealer  or: 

•  CAMEO  ELECTRONICS,  INC. 

1 626  Clementine 
Anaheim,  Ca.  92802 
[714]  535-1682 


•  CAMEO  EUROPE 

Postfach  227 
8120  Weilheim 
West  Germany 
TEL  08802-691 
TLX  59903  CAMEO  D 


The  Trade  Marks  and  Logos  of  the  computer  companies  referred  to  above 
are  owned  by  them  respectively  and  are  not  the  property  of  CAMEO  ELECTRONICS,  INC. 


THE  PERMANENT  PORTFOLIO  ANALYZER  ENTRY  SHEET 

PDRTFni  in  NAMF  LjfcJLj  ^  (2 

(/ 

CURRENT  PRICE 

PURCHASE  PRICE 

CATEGORIES  AND  CATEGORY  ITEMS 

QUANTITY 

PER  UNIT  |S! 

PER  UNIT  (S| 

1-GOLD  BULLION  | 

•tem  i-  fyS) 

■32.15  <02> 

/87 .  So 

ITEM  2-  f'79) 

<oz> 

33* 

I1FM  3u 

&  (021 

303 

319.  Jo 

ITEM  4-  t  S 

(0Z) 

2-GOLD  OPTIONS 

ITEM  1- 

ICONT) 

ITEM  2- 

(CONT) 

_ 

ITEM  3- 

(CONTI 

ITEM  4- 

(CONT) 

3-SILVER  BULLION 

ITEM  1- 

15  (0Z) 

SJ5 

jO.40 

ITEM  2- 

(OZ) 

ITEM  3- 

(OZ) 

ITEM  4- 

(OZ) 

4-SILVER  COINS 

ITEM  1-  7 l.J.  9t>% 

/  (BAGS) 

3S/6 

ITEM  2- 

(BAGS! 

ITEM  3- 

(BAGS) 

ITEM  4- 

(BAGS) 

5-SWISS  FRANCS 

ITEM  1- 

/W  (FR| 

\ 

.  jf 

ITEM  2- 

(FR| 

ITEM  3- 

(FR) 

ITEM  4- 

(FR) 

6-SWISS  FRANCS  W/INTEREST 

ITEM  1-  ‘X3M 

/^r  ifri 

.41 

.  j9 

item  2-  JY0  U  'U  Oo) 

(FR) 

■  si 

ITEM  3*  ' 

(FR) 

ITEM  4- 

(FR) 

|  7-STOCKS 

ITEM  1-  ^2*3^1 

(SHl 

*23 

1$ 

ITEM  2* 

/ttt?  (SH) 

63^ 

ITEM  3- 

<f H  ISHI 

36 

ITEM  4-  i 

bet)  (SH) 

13~d 

< tf-ty 

Figure  1. 

Doe's  first  step  is  to  gather  data  on  his  port¬ 
folio.  He'll  need  to  put  together  a  complete  list 
of  all  his  investments,  their  purchase  prices, 
and  their  current  market  values.  The  complet¬ 
ed  data-entry  sheets  for  his  portfolio  are 
shown  in  figure  1. 

Once  you've  transferred  PC-DOS  onto  the 
program  disk  and  taken  care  of  some  other 
housekeeping  chores  that  are  clearly  explained 
in  the  documentation,  you're  ready  to  enter 
your  own  data.  It's  very  easy  to  enter,  verify, 
and  edit  data  within  the  program. 

When  you  finish  entering  your  portfolio  in¬ 
formation,  the  program  displays  a  list  of  all 
portfolios  currently  stored  on  the  data  disk 
and  asks  what  name  you  want  to  store  this 
portfolio  under.  The  name  you  choose  must  fit 
within  the  parameters  of  PC-DOS;  in  other 
words,  it  must  be  no  longer  than  eight  charac¬ 
ters,  must  contain  no  periods  or  commas,  and 


so  on.  If  you  choose  a  name  that's  already  on 
disk,  the  program  double-checks  to  be  sure 
you  really  want  to  overwrite  the  existing  file. 

To  perform  its  analysis,  the  program  uses  a 
series  of  tables  containing  Browne's  assump¬ 


tions  about  the  future.  Investors  must  ask 
themselves  what  the  foundations  of  these  as¬ 
sumptions  are.  Did  Browne  pull  them  out  of 
the  air,  or  are  they  the  result  of  a  thorough 
quantitative  analysis?  The  Permanent  Portfo¬ 
lio  Analyzer  does  only  rudimentary  math  on 
the  information  that's  entered  into  it;  the  as¬ 
sumptions  used  by  the  program  are  the  key.  If 
you  disagree  with  these  assumptions  and  de¬ 
cide  to  use  your  own,  you  must  be  willing  to 
do  the  work  required  (which  may  be  substan¬ 
tial)  to  develop  realistic  and  practical  alter¬ 
natives. 

The  information  contained  in  the  tables  in¬ 
cludes  assumptions  about  inflation  over  the 
next  ten  years,  today's  prices  for  the  various 
investment  categories,  future  prices  for  those 
categories,  targeted  portfolio  compositions  un¬ 
der  the  various  inflation  assumptions,  and  de¬ 
tails  about  Browne's  assumptions  under  a 
go-for-broke  investment  strategy.  As  men¬ 
tioned,  the  investors  can  change  any  of  this  in¬ 
formation  to  reflect  their  own  assumptions  or 
to  update  the  program  should  Browne's  as¬ 
sumptions  change.  Hurrah.  Finally  a  pro¬ 
gram — which  is  essentially  a  decision- 
generator — that  admits  that  it  might  not  al¬ 
ways  be  right  and  that  things  can  change. 
When  they  do  and  the  author's  assumptions 
also  change,  all  registered  owners  will  be  no¬ 
tified  of  the  changes  so  that  they  can  update 
their  tables  accordingly. 

For  the  final  category— other  invest¬ 
ments — it's  not  possible  for  Browne  or  the  pro¬ 
gram  author  to  guess  what  your  other 
investments  might  be.  Thus,  you  must  enter 
your  own  assumptions  about  these  invest¬ 
ments  in  the  tables  that  contain  assumptions 
about  present  and  future  prices.  As  men¬ 
tioned,  you're  likely  to  find  forecasting  the  fu¬ 
ture  a  difficult  task,  but  the  validity  of  your 
analysis  rests  heavily  on  your  ability  to  do  so, 
especially  if  the  investments  in  this  category 
make  up  a  large  portion  of  your  portfolio. 

Let's  return  for  a  moment  to  our  hypotheti¬ 
cal  investor,  John  Doe.  The  first  report  Doe 
runs  produces  a  balance  sheet  and  an  evalua¬ 
tion  of  his  portfolio.  For  this  report  to  be  accu¬ 
rate,  all  the  current  price  information 


«<  THE  PERMANENT  PORTFOLIO  ANALYZER  >» 
CURRENT  PORTFOLIO  BALANCE  SHEET  AND  EVALUATION 


JOHN  DOE  PORTFOLIO 

JULY  4, 

19B2 

CURRENT 

CURRENT 

PURCHASE 

TOTAL 

PORTFOLIO 

NUMBER 

PRICE 

MARKET 

CATE6. 

PRICE 

PURCHASE 

UNREALIZED 

OVER 

HOLDINGS 

OF  UNITS 

PER  UNIT 

VALUE 

SHARE 

PER  UNIT 

PRICE 

GAIN/LOSS 

CHANGE 

301 

(I  TENS) 

(t) 

IS) 

(1) 

II) 

<«) 

(1) 

(+)  (-) 

(1) 

CHNG 

1-80LD  BULLION  (OZ): 
BULLION  ( ’ 7B ) 

32.15 

305.00 

9,806 

1.B4 

IB7.50 

6,028 

3,77B 

62.67 

X 

BULLION  (’79) 

96.45 

305.00 

29,417 

5.51 

238.00 

22,955 

6,462 

2B.15 

KRUGERRANDS 

50.00 

305.00 

15,250 

2.B6 

369.50 

IB, 475 

-3,225 

-17.46 

TOTAL  GOLD  BULLION 

54,473 

10.21 

47,458 

7,015 

14.78 

Figure  2. 


92 


SOftQlk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


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contained  in  the  portfolio  must  be  current. 

Figure  2  shows  one  part  of  this  report— the 
first  item,  gold  bullion.  The  majority  of  the  re¬ 
port  is  a  recap  of  the  portfolio  investment  in¬ 
formation  entered  earlier.  However,  the  report 
also  contains  computations  that  tell  what  per¬ 
centage  of  your  portfolio  each  investment 
makes  up  (category  share)  and  the  unrealized 
gain  or  loss  on  the  investments.  It  also  flags 
any  item  that  has  changed  in  value  more  than 
30  percent. 

The  30  percent  change  mark  has  a  special 
significance  in  the  Browne  investment  strategy. 
Browne  believes  that  whenever  any  asset  in  the 
portfolio  has  appreciated  or  depreciated  30 
percent,  the  entire  portfolio  should  be  adjusted 
to  bring  the  item  percentages  back  in  line.  We 
can  call  this  process  "repermanentizing." 
Mathematically,  the  report  is  not  complicated; 
the  results  it  provides  could  easily  have  been 
generated  by  a  spreadsheet  program.  There¬ 
fore,  this  report  alone  is  not  sufficient  to  war¬ 
rant  your  shelling  out  $295.  Let's  see  whether 
the  next  report— the  ten-year  forecast— is. 

The  ten-year  projection  shows  the  fore¬ 
casted  condition  of  your  portfolio  ten  years 
hence  based  on  the  inflation  (economic)  condi¬ 
tion  you  chose  and  the  composition  of  your 
portfolio  today.  The  report  also  shows  the 
targeted  share  of  your  portfolio  that  a  given 
item  should  be  according  to  Browne,  what 
share  it  is,  and  the  dollar  amount  required  (or 
liberated  for  other  use)  that  would  bring  that 
item  to  the  target  level.  The  gold  bullion  sec¬ 
tion  of  the  ten-year  projection  analysis  is 
shown  in  figure  3. 


At  first  glance,  this  report  appears  similar 
to  the  current  portfolio  balance  and  evaluation 
report  (part  of  which  is  shown  in  figure  2).  The 
number  of  units,  current  price  per  unit,  current 
market  value,  and  category  share  columns  are 
based  on  information  entered  by  the  investor. 
The  target  share  column  is  based  on  Browne's 
assumptions,  which,  as  we've  said,  are  con¬ 
tained  in  a  table  within  the  program.  The  tar¬ 


get  value  is  computed  using  Browne's 
recommended  percentage  for  the  item,  based 
on  the  current  total  value  of  the  portfolio. 

Let's  use  John  Doe's  portfolio  as  an  exam¬ 
ple.  Doe's  portfolio  is  worth  $533,481;  there¬ 
fore,  the  recommended  gold  component  of  his 
portfolio  is  35  percent  of  $533,481,  or 
$186,718.  The  difference  to  be  bought  or  sold 
is  simply  the  difference  between  the  current 
dollar  amount  of  the  items  in  the  portfolio  and 
the  calculated  recommended  amount.  If  there's 
a  shortage,  the  program  tells  the  investor  how 
much  more  of  that  item  needs  to  be  bought;  if 
too  much  of  an  item  is  owned,  the  program 
tells  how  much  must  be  sold.  Note:  This  infor¬ 
mation  should  be  used  only  as  a  guide  to  deci¬ 
sions,  not  as  a  strict  indicator  of  what  decision 
should  be  made. 

Neither  the  program  nor  the  strategy  ex¬ 
pects  you  to  increase  your  investments;  it  only 
suggests  that  you  rearrange  them.  There  are, 
however,  two  obvious  problems  here.  First,  if 
you  need  to  change  the  structure  of  your  port¬ 
folio,  you're  bound  to  encounter  some  costs, 
such  as  brokerage  fees  and  commissions.  That 
means  you'll  need  either  to  invest  more  or  liq¬ 
uidate  part  of  your  portfolio  to  cover  these 
costs.  Second,  if  your  home  is  worth  $120,000 
and  the  Permanent  Portfolio  Analyzer  tells 
you  that  you  should  own  only  $90,000  worth 
of  real  estate,  should  you  sell  off  only  $30,000 
worth  of  your  home?  Of  course  not.  Obvi¬ 
ously  a  simplification  of  assumptions  had  to  be 
done  in  order  to  make  the  analysis  possible.  It 
is  the  investor's  ultimate  responsibility  to  real¬ 
ize  that  common  sense  and  judgment  are  re¬ 


quired  to  make  this,  or  any  other  investment 
strategy,  work. 

Up  to  this  point,  the  ten-year-projection  re¬ 
port  simply  has  shown  us  what  we  own  today 
and  what  Browne  would  recommend  that  we 
own.  Again,  we  could  just  as  easily  have  done 
these  calculations  on  a  spreadsheet.  It  is  the 
last  two  columns  of  this  report  that  constitute 
the  crux  of  the  Permanent  Portfolio  Analyzer's 


analysis.  For  it  is  here  that  we  learn  the  fore¬ 
casted  future  value  of  our  portfolio. 

Based  on  the  scenario  chosen  (in  this  case, 
rising  inflation),  the  program  forecasts  the  fu¬ 
ture  purchasing  power  of  our  present  portfolio 
alongside  that  of  Browne's  target  portfolio. 
The  future  purchasing  power  of  both  portfo¬ 
lios  is  expressed  in  today's  dollars.  Thus,  refer¬ 
ring  once  again  to  Doe's  portfolio,  we  find  that 
on  July  4,  1992,  the  present-day  purchasing 
power  of  his  present  portfolio  will  be 
$605,813,  while  Browne's  target  portfolio, 
which  began  with  the  same  dollar  amount  in¬ 
vested,  will  have  a  purchasing  power  of 
$783,137.  That's  a  $177,324  difference. 

What  accounts  for  this  difference?  Well,  ac¬ 
cording  to  Browne's  strategy,  a  permanent 
portfolio  (permanent  in  accordance  with  his 
theories)  will  appreciate  more  than  a  nonper¬ 
manent  portfolio.  The  question  you  must  ask 
yourself  is,  "Do  I  agree  with  the  strategy— that 
is,  with  the  portfolio  balance  Browne  recom¬ 
mends,  and  with  his  assumptions  about  the  fu¬ 
ture?" 

If  you  do  agree,  great.  The  Permanent 
Portfolio  Analyzer  is  a  well-written,  beauti¬ 
fully  documented  software  package  that 
should  be  of  great  help  to  you  in  implementing 
the  strategy  it  embodies.  If  you  don't  agree 
with  Browne's  theories  and  assumptions,  then 
your  first  reaction,  understandably,  will  prob¬ 
ably  be  that  the  program  isn't  even  worth  con¬ 
sidering.  While  this  is  a  logical  way  to  feel,  it's 
also  true  that  a  great  deal  about  forecasting  fu¬ 
ture  values  can  be  learned  from  this  program. 
The  methodology  used  to  analyze  the  perma¬ 
nent  portfolio  is  a  good,  clean  representation 
of  price-forecasting  techniques — uncompli¬ 
cated  but  complete.  So  if  you  disagree  with 
Browne's  numbers  but  agree  with  the  variables 
used  in  the  analysis,  you  could  certainly  con¬ 
sider  this  program  a  viable  alternative  to  writ¬ 
ing  your  own  package  on  a  spreadsheet. 

Should  you  consider  doing  this  analysis  on 
a  spreadsheet?  There  are  two  sides  to  this  ques¬ 
tion.  On  the  "buy  the  software"  side,  the  Per - 
manent  Portfolio  Analyzer  is  a  well-executed, 
well-written,  well-documented  package,  and 
as  far  as  we  can  tell  it's  error-free.  And,  of 
course,  it  walks  you  through  the  analysis, 
which  a  spreadsheet  package  would  not.  In  ad¬ 
dition,  building  a  spreadsheet  model  to  run 
Browne's  analysis  would  require  considerable 
time  and  effort.  On  the  "use  a  spreadsheet" 
side,  there's  the  fact  that  using  a  spreadsheet 
would  allow  you  to  enter  your  own  assump¬ 
tions  into  the  analysis  easily  and  to  put  more 
information  on  a  report. 

Your  own  beliefs,  assumptions,  and  needs 
are  what  will  determine  whether  the  Perma¬ 
nent  Portfolio  Analyzer  is  a  program  you 
should  buy.  So,  too,  the  question  of  whether  to 
buy  the  software  or  use  a  spreadsheet  in  your 
analysis  is  one  only  you  can  answer.  A 


«<  THE  PERMANENT  PORTFOLIO  ANALYZER  )» 

PORTFOLIO  TEN-YEAR  PROJECTION  ANALYSIS 
JOHN  DOE  PORTFOLIO  JULY  (,  1992 

EXPECTATION:  RISING  INFLATION  U  PROJECTED  VALUES  l! 


t  OF  FUTURE 
I  PURCHASES  POMER 

I 


CURRENT 

CURRENT 

DIFFERENCE 

FUTURE  P.P. 

FUTURE  P.P. 

PORTFOLIO 

NUMBER 

PRICE 

MARKET 

CATEG. 

TARGET 

TARGET 

TO  BE 

CURRENT 

TARGET 

H0LDIN6S 

OF  UNITS 

PER  UNIT 

VALUE 

SHARE 

SHARE 

VALUE 

BOUGHT/SOLD 

HOLDINGS 

HOLDINGS 

(ITEMS) 

(1) 

($) 

(t) 

(XI 

(XI 

1$) 

(♦)  H 

<«) 

(«) 

1-GOLD  BULLION  (01) i 

BULLION  (’78) 

52.15 

305.00 

9,806 

1.84 

BULLION  (’79) 

96.(5 

305.00 

29,(17 

5.51 

KRUGERRANDS 

50.00 

305.00 

15,250 

2.86 

TOTAL  GOLD  BULLION 

54,(73 

10.21 

35.00 

186,718 

132,2(5 

115,114 

394,577 

Figure  3. 


94 


softcilk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


t 


- ThmkTank 

IS  NEW  AND  UNIQUE. 

IT  IS  VERY  USEFUL. 

YOU  SHOULD  KNOW  ABOUT  IT. 
READ  THIS  CAREFULLY. 

WHAT  THE  PROGRAM  IS 

Thinklank  is  an  'idea  processor'  for  your  IBM  PC  personal  computer,  an  out¬ 
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processor. 

HOW  ThinkTank  WORKS 

You  enter  topics  in  'headline'  form — and  then  indent  headlines  under  each 
other  to  create  an  outline  format.  With  single  keystrokes  you  change  your 
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WHO  CAN  USE  IT 

Virtually  anyone  with  a  personal  computer  needs  Thinklank.  It  is  being  used 
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4  ca 


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USERS  AND  REVIEWERS  LOVE  IT 

The  New  16 rk  Times:  "ThinkTank  is  so  easy  to  use,  and  so  relatively  error 
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One  customer  wrote:  "I  use  ThinkTank  for  more  purposes  than  I  have  any 
other  program  in  the  five  years  Tve  owned  a  computer." 


Vtf1 


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Suggested  Retail  Price  $195  (IBM  PC) 

ThinkTank  is  available  for  IBM  PC,  Compaq,  and  100%  compatibles,  You'll  need  two 
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Apple  computers. 

ThinkTank  and  ''the  first  idea  processor1'  are  trademarks  of  Living  Videotext.  Inc. 
Apple  is  a  registered  trademark  of  Apple  Computer,  Inc. 

IBM  and  IBM  PC  are  registered  trademarks  of  international  Business  Machines 
Corporation. 


t 


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Would  you  like  to  get  in  the  picture? 


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FEATURES  OF  STAR  FLEET  I 
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ensures  FLEET  mem¬ 
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THE  WAR  BEGINS / " 


You  have  completed  your  training  at  the  Academy Now  is  the  time  to  see  if  those  long  hours  in  the  simulator  pay  off  as  you  accept  command  of 
one  of  the  most  powerful  fighting  vessels  in  the  known  universe— the  Invincible  Class  heavy  cruiser.  Your  mission:  defend  the  outer  regions  of 
the  United  Galactic  Alliance  against  attack  by  hordes  of  ruthless  Krellans  and  Zatdrons.  You  engage  main  engines  and  enter  hyperspace 
confident  of  success.  However ,  you  arrive  in  the  Deneb  IV  region  to  suddenly  find  yourself  greatly  outnumbered ... 


CAPTAIN’S  LOG,  iLG.A.S,  A  TLA  Af  775 

Date  510*6,21;  W  'merged  from  hyperspace  surrounded  by  four  Krellan 
destroyers,  GENERA^  QUARTERS!  We  immediately  engaged  bn tile 
and  fi red  off  fi ve  to rpedoes. 

Date  5106.3:  We  destroyed  two  Krellun  vessels  and  disabled  a  third ,  but 
a  fSfl.fd.ro ft  ifarsAip  arrtved.  We  on’  laying  mine.1)  sjrtce  their  invisibility 
screen  makes  our  sensors  useless. 

Date  5106.0:  Sensors  indicate  a  large  explosion.  The  Zatdron  has 
struck  a  mine!  Our  tractor  beam,  has  the  disabled  Krellan  ship  III  low 
a  ad  our  space  marines  are  being  transported  aboard  to  effect  capture. 


Ilate  5107.0:  Our  boarding  party  ttfcg  rtpufetwL  with  heavy  casualties. 
/A1  IRU DER  ALERT !  The  Krellan:-  retaliated  by  beaming  a  s aba UsUT 
aboard.  An  •  I'h^um  mi  Deck  7  fin  waged  mir  primary  life  support 
$yHtvm,  Have  initiated  a  search  And  put  Deck  7 an  max  security. 

Date  5107-6:  Krellan  vessel  finally  captured  by  Ih*  murines  and 
prisoners  were  token.  Received  iop  priority  orders  to  rescue  Starbasc  3 
tuhick  is  under  attack  by  a  Krellan  fleet.  Crew  at  battle  stations — 
engaging  kyperdnm. 

Date  5107.0;  COLLISION!  Course  intercepted  by  Krellan.  POINT 
BLANK  HIT!  Have  lost  shield  1  and  suffered  massive  damage  and 
casualties.  Engineering  reports  our  backup  life  support  system  is  fading. 
Cannot  surinm  another  attack  or  reach  starbasel  IVe  mus£  escape ... 
HOW?! 


Membership  in  the  FLEET  is  available  for  only  549.95,  suggested  retail  price,  at  your  computer  software  store.  Or  send  check  or  money  order,  plus 
52.00  for  postage  and  handling,  to:  CYGNUS,  STAR  FLEET  L  P  0.  Box  S7B2  5,  Webster Texas.  77596  Tel:  {71 3)486-41 63  Dealer  inquiries  welcome 


^Registered  trademark  of  International  Business  Machines  Corporation 


Got  a  pc-owner  on  your  shopping  list?  To  help  you 
find  the  perfect  gift  for  that  special  pc-owning 
somebody  we  present  the  second  annual  Softalk  /IBM 
Holiday  Gift  Guide.  ,  .. 

Once  again,  we  asked  software  publishers  and 
manufacturers  of  hardware  products  for  the  pc 
to  send  us  short  descriptions  of  items  they  think  pc 
owners  might  like  for  Christmas;  those  descriptions  ap¬ 
pear  in  the  following  pages.  We  have  not  tested  all 
these  products,  and  we  leave  it  to  you  to  determine 
their  suitability  for  your  gift-giving  needs. 

The  gift  guide  is  organized  by  product  category 
with  the  addresses  and  phone  numbers  of  con-  , 
tributors  listed  at  the  end  of  the  guide.  Here  are  the 
categories  and  the  pages  on  which  they  begin:  , 

Accessories  . . ; . 99 

Business . : . 114  1 

Communications  . .  150 

;  Education . . . ,  . . . * .  T 156 

Games  . . , ' . .  /  16S 

Graphics  ,  . t. 1 . :  .. .  j  v  \ .  178 

Hardware  - L . 1  /  ..V  *  * .  %  ^ ...  181 

Home . , . . .  *  ,  v  *  *  •  -  188 

Publications . i, . 192 

System  Software,  Languages,  and  Utilities  .  *  198 
Word  Processing  .  211 

Index  of  Contributors . . . .  216 

It's  our  hope  that  you  11  find  the  perfect  gift  in  thrse 
*  (^ag^s-^aven  if  your  special  somebody  is  you, 

5  d  and  happy  holidays! 

s 

\r 


9S 


softalk 


Accessories 


AbCom  Corp* 

Bishop,  CA 

PC  Covers .  These  protective  covers  are  for 
either  the  IBM  keyboard  or  the  system  unit 
and  monochrome  monitor.  Constructed  of 
urethane-coated  pack  cloth  with  double- 
stitched  seams,  these  covers  are  available  in 
navy,  brown,  or  silver.  Other  cover  combi¬ 
nations  are  also  available.  Keyboard  cover, 
$9.70*  System  unit  and  monitor,  $20.45. 

Alpha  Delta  Communications,  Inc. 
Centerville,  OH 

Master  AC  Control  Console *  Features  light¬ 
ning  spike  and  voltage  surge  protection  with 
master  and  individual  circuit  switch  control* 
Provides  eight  120- volt  AC  outlets,  three- 
stage  2,000-amp  surge  protectors,  and 
lighted  switches*  UL  listed*  $79*95. 

Amtek  Systems,  Inc. 

Richardson,  TX 

Amtek  Power  Siftors.  Improve  system  per¬ 
formance*  Reduce  failures,  unfound  software 
"bugs,"  and  lost  Hies.  $450. 

Apogee  Designs,  Ltd* 

Baltimore,  MD 

Printer  Stands,  Features  shelves  for  manuals 
and  4-in  paper  space*  AP-216  (MX-8G), 
$27*50.  AP-221  (MX- 1 00),  $29*50. 

Sound  Control  Stands .  Includes  a  lid  and 
acoustic  foam  to  confine  noise.  A  P-320  (MX- 
80),  $79*50*  AP-325  (MX-100),  $89*50. 
Two-Axis  Monitor  Stand.  Swivels  to  put 
monitor  at  best  viewing  angle.  All  monitors. 
AP-430,  $44. 

Double-Bay  Covered  Disk  Rack,  Holds  sixty 
5  1/4-in  disks.  AP-505,  $29.50. 


Bretford  Manufacturing,  Inc. 

Schiller  Park,  IL 

EC10  Mobile  CRT  Table .  Designed  to  adapt 
to  varied  educational  and  training  uses*  Has 
a  six-foot-square  surface  that  can  be  adjusted 
to  different  heights,  plus  an  adjustable,  slot¬ 
ted  top  shelf  to  hold  a  television  monitor  or 
other  equipment.  Three-outlet  electrical  unit 
with  a  twenty-foot  three-wire  cord  and 
grounded  plug;  cord  organizer/modesty 
panel;  heavy  gauge  steel  construction;  and  a 
high -impact  finish  in  putty  beige*  $239. 

California  Design  Works 
Monterey,  CA 

Stack  *Rack  (model  §AB1B).  The  perfect 
stand  for  your  IBM  or  Epson  printer.  This 
unit  elevates  printer,  allowing  paper  storage 
below.  Shelf  adjusts  to  different  heights  and 
angles.  Workshelves  are  custom  manufac¬ 
tured  of  premium  quality  red  oak,  and  pro¬ 
vide  a  rich  harmonious  accent  to  the 
computer  colors.  Nine  models  available* 
$48. 

Stack  *Rack  (model  $A822).  Elevates  your 
IBM  system  unit  for  easier  disk  access,  and 
provides  a  space  for  storing  keyboard  under 
shelf.  Ideal  for  Compaq  portables  to  position 
monitor  screen  correctly*  Hand-crafted  of 
solid  red  oak.  Shelf  adjusts  for  height  and  an¬ 
gle.  Nine  models  available*  $58* 

Stack  *Rack  (model  §A162222),  Double- 
shelf  rack  unit  positions  your  monitor  at  the 
best  viewing  angle  and  height.  It  also  pro¬ 
vides  for  reference  material  and  keyboard 
storage.  Constructed  of  solid  red  oak  and 
finished  with  a  hand-rubbed  oil  finish*  Al¬ 
lows  complete  adjustability*  Nine  models 
available.  $118. 


Capitol  Sales  Co. 

Austin,  TX 

SDC  Antiglare  Screen,  Not  glass  or  plex¬ 
iglass  but  a  fine- woven  mesh  of  tough  syn¬ 
thetic  material.  Mesh  passes  text  and  graphic 
information  from  the  CRT  to  the  eyes  while 
stopping  light  from  other  sources  in  the  room 
from  reflecting  back  to  the  user.  Appearance 
of  the  display  is  enhanced  because  characters 
appear  on  a  dark  rather  than  on  a  light  back¬ 
ground.  $39.95. 

Cases,  Inc* 

Seattle,  WA 

Personal  Computer  and  Keyboard  Case, 
$110. 

Monochrome  Display  $110* 

Printer.  $100. 

PC  and  Monitor.  $140. 

CodoMfg*  Corp. 

Upper  Darby,  PA 

Full  line  of  ribbons  to  fit  various  printers.  Ny¬ 
lon  and  film.  Prices  vary. 

ColorCorp 
Bloomfield  Hills,  MI 
ColorBIZ  PC-Saver.  Ensures  dean  drives  and 
disks  whether  or  not  your  pc  is  used,  A 
handy  command  summary  is  printed  on  this 
attractive  and  sturdy  product,  which  in¬ 
cludes  pc-startup  commands,  keyboard  us¬ 
age,  DOS  command  reference,  printer 
operation,  and  disk  care  instructions*  $9*95. 

CompuCable  Corp* 

Anaheim,  CA 

JBM  PC  Dust  cover  Set.  Set  includes  disk 
drive  and  keyboard  cover.  Manufactured  by 


for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


Accessories 


CompuCable  out  of  high-quality,  smoke-col¬ 
ored  crystal  styrene.  $9,95. 

Compucart  Division  of  Versa  Tec 
Corp. 

Tampa,  FL 

Compucart.  Holds  pc  monitor,  keyboard, 
disk  drives,  printer,  expansion  chassis,  soft¬ 
ware,  and  manuals,  which  can  then  be 
locked  away.  Its  adjustable  design  accepts 
most  pc  systems,  takes  only  four  square  feet 
of  floor  space,  and  rolls  easily  wherever 
needed.  Three  models  in  four  colors.  $595. 

CompuCover 
Mary  Esther,  FL 

CompuCovers.  Static-free  computer  dust- 
covers  are  made  of  the  finest  plastic  and  du¬ 
rable  cloth-backed  vinyl  available.  Compu¬ 
Covers  are  custom  fit  to  each  individual  piece 
of  computer  equipment.  CompuCovers  start 
at  $3.95. 

Compugift,  Inc. 

Mission  Viejo,  CA 

Terminal  Lookalikes.  Plastic,  41/2"  by  6"  by 
4  1/4",  in  three  styles:  Computer  Caddy,  for 
pens,  pencils,  pad;  Computer  Planter,  for  the 
green  thing;  and  Computer  Bank,  for  that 
loose  change.  Instead  of  a  screenful  of  words 
or  numbers,  there's  room  for  a  favorite  snap¬ 
shot.  Available  in  beige,  dark  gray,  yellow, 
and  magenta.  $11.99,  postage  paid. 

Compu-Quote 

Canoga  Park,  CA 

Calc/Pad.  A  layout  pad  for  electronic 
spreadsheet  users.  It  is  printed  on  both  sides 
and  consists  of  fifty  punched  sheets  per 
8  1/2"  by  11"  pad.  Plenty  of  room  in  each 
box  for  penciling  in  the  required  text,  value, 
or  formula.  $4.75,  plus  $1  shipping  charge. 
Qwik-Label.  A  set  of  thirteen  preprinted  self- 
adhesive  labels  that  identify  all  of  the  card 
slots,  connectors,  knobs,  and  other  compo¬ 
nents  of  the  pc.  Five  blank  labels  are  included 
for  those  special  nonstandard  devices.  $1., 
plus  .25  shipping. 

Qwik-Key.  A  plastic  overlay  card  that  fits 
around  the  pc's  function  keys.  It  is  easily 
marked  to  indicate  each  key's  purpose  for 
any  program.  Each  Qwik-Key  can  be  used 
many  times  over.  Package  of  three,  $4.50, 
plus  .90  shipping. 

Qwik-Guide.  A  set  of  two  rugged  reference 
cards  that  place  important  pc  operating  in¬ 
structions  at  eye  level.  Printed  on  both  sides, 
this  pair  of  cards  contains  information  on  all 
DOS  commands.  Basic  error  messages,  and 
complete  control /function  key  usage.  Set  of 
two,  $3.25,  plus  .90  shipping. 

Qwik-Kit.  Includes  Qwik-Label,  a  set  of  pre¬ 
printed  identifiers;  Qwik-Key,  a  function  key 


overlay  card;  and  Qwik-Guide,  a  pair  of  rug¬ 
ged  reference  cards  preprinted  with  impor¬ 
tant  operating  instructions.  $7.75,  plus  .90 
shipping. 

Computer  Case  Co. 

Columbus,  OH 

Computer  Cases,  Designed  to  carry  the 
equipment  in  a  fully  operational  configura¬ 
tion.  Simply  remove  the  lid  and  operate. 
Cases  are  constructed  of  the  highest  quality 
luggage  material  with  mahogany  wood  sides 
and  covered  with  heavy  brown  vinyl,  saddle 
stitched  for  strength  and  appearance.  All 
cases  are  fitted  with  padded  handles,  brass 
hardware,  key  locks,  and  rubber  feet,  pc 
case,  $129.  Monitor  case,  $99.  Accessory 
case,  $95. 

Computer  Furniture  Corp. 

Chapel  Hill,  NC 

Computer  Furniture.  Hand-crafted  desk  for 
the  pc,  with  a  CPU  shelf,  a  lockable  key¬ 
board  tray,  and  a  large  drawer.  In  select  wal¬ 
nut  and  oak  veneer  and  solids.  Shipped, 
assembled,  to  your  home  or  office.  Free  cata¬ 
log.  Oak,  $525.  Walnut,  $595. 

Covers  A  Lot 
La  Honda,  CA 

Covers  A  Lot.  Custom-made  quilted  dust- 
covers,  antistatic,  machine- washable.  Colors 
offered:  gray,  chocolate,  cream,  navy,  bur¬ 
gundy,  or  rust.  Can  be  made  to  order.  Two- 
in-one  (monitor  on  top  of  system)  and 
keyboard,  $50  per  set.  Monitor,  $24.  System 
unit,  $24.  Keyboard,  $20.  Wide  printer,  $24. 
Narrow  printer,  $20. 

Creative  Computer  Products 

San  Diego,  CA 

Kleertex.  Keyboard  templates  fit  the  key¬ 
board  of  the  computer,  listing  the  prompts, 
formats,  symbols,  and  functions  with  key-by- 
key  examples  for  WordStar,  VisiCalc,  1-2-3, 
Easy  writer  II,  dBase  II,  SuperCalc  2,  and 
other  popular  software  programs.  Available 
for  pc-compatible  keyboards.  $19.95  to 
$32.95. 

Curtis  Manufacturing  Co. 
Peterborough,  NH 

PC  Pedestal  II.  Tilt  and  swivel  base  tilts  ± 
15°;  swivels  360°.  Adjust  IBM  monochrome 
or  color  display  to  improve  sight  angle  and 
minimize  glare.  Same  color,  texture  as  the  pc, 
$79.95. 

SS-1  Systems  Stand.  Vertical  positioning  re¬ 
duces  wear  and  increases  system  life.  Same 
color  and  texture  as  the  pc.  $24.95. 

EC-1  Three-Foot  Extension  Cable  Set.  Ar¬ 
range  your  pc  monochrome  display  the  way 
you  want  to.  Curtis  cables  are  fully  shielded 
and  have  high-quality  connectors.  Cable  set 
packed  with  free  pc  keyboard  dustcover. 
$49.95. 


EC-2  Three-to-Nine-Foot  Coiled  Extension 
Cable.  For  the  pc  keyboard.  Increase  mobil¬ 
ity,  eliminate  tension.  Fully  shielded,  with 
high  quality  connectors.  With  free  keyboard 
dustcover.  $39.95. 

Curtis  PA  1  Plug  Adapter.  Turn  on  non-IBM 
monitor  with  the  main  computer  power 
switch.  Adapts  any  conventional  power  plug 
to  the  IBM  system  unit.  $8.95. 

Data*Easy  Software,  Data 
Consulting  Group 

Foster  City,  CA 

Color  Disks.  Top-quality  disks  in  red,  green, 
yellow,  blue,  burgundy,  silver,  tan,  brown, 
and  orange  in  5  1 /4-inch  and  8-inch.  Call  for 
prices. 

Denberg  Industries 
Minneapolis,  MN 

Strata  Series  Computer  Furnishings.  Office 
furniture  designed  specifically  to  house  the 
pc.  Average  setup,  $1,099. 

Diskus  Products 
Los  Angeles,  CA 

Diskus  Dividers.  Sets  of  five  color-coded  in¬ 
dex  tab  dividers  to  aid  filing  in  any  storage 
container,  can  be  marked  on  with  grease 
pencil,  or  simply  used  to  flag  programs  by 
color.  $2.49.  8",  $2.99. 

Diskfiles.  Capacities  of  up  to  125  disks  for 
storage  and  filing.  Compartments  are  sepa¬ 
rated  by  removable  clear  inserts.  Five  color- 
coded  index  tab  Diskus  Dividers.  Stackable 
with  disk  drives,  made  of  dark  translucent 
acrylic.  Diskfile  125,  $59.95.  Diskus,  Jr.  (75+ 
disks),  $39.95. 

The  D.P.  Consultant 
Plano,  TX 

D.P,  Consultant.  124  labels:  56  rectangular 
labels  for  disk  contents,  60  universal  symbols 
advising  on  disk  care,  and  8  blank  disk  la¬ 
bels.  $3. 

D/ Punch  Co. 

Newton  Hlds.,  MA 

Flip-It.  Allows  you  to  use  both  sides  of  your 
single-sided  disks.  There  is  no  need  to  mea¬ 
sure  or  make  alignment  marks  or  alter  your 
hardware.  $16.95,  plus  $2  shipping. 

Falcon  Safety  Products,  Inc. 
Mountainside,  NJ 

Dust-Off  II.  Facilitates  .user  maintenance  of 
all  computer  media  and  peripherals  by  blow¬ 
ing  away  dust,  lint,  and  dirt.  Removable  and 
lockable  valve  that  provides  clean,  dry,  tri¬ 
ple-filtered  blasts.  $24.95. 

Stat-Off  II.  A  dedicated  Dust-Off  II  acces¬ 
sory,  fits  neatly  over  the  Dust-Off  II  valve  to 
produce  an  ionized  blast.  Unlike  other  anti¬ 
static  devices  that  spray  potentially  corrosive 
liquids  onto  CRTs,  Stat-Off  II  is  a  dry-proc¬ 
ess  static-elimination  device.  $17.95. 


softalk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


Introduce  yourself 
to  the  IBM/PC  with 
"HELLO  CHARLIE" 


7^ 


Would  you  like  to  see  what  your  new 
IBM /PC  can  do  without  spending  hun¬ 
dreds  of  dollars  on  software?  "HELLO 
CHARLIE"  gives  you  a  smorgasbord  of 
some  of  the  most  popular  types  of  pro¬ 
grams  available  for  the  PC.  Entertain¬ 
ment,  graphics,  spreadsheet,  typing 
tutor,  it's  all  there.  Some  of  the  programs 
include: 

■  A  Graphics  Tool—  Turn  your  PC  into 
a  drawing  board  with  "HELLO 
CHARLIE'S"  graphics  program.  Create, 
scale,  transfer  and  rotate  pictures  on  your 
display.  Then  print  hard  copies  with 
screen  print  routines  for  most  of  the 
popular  dot  matrix  printers. 

■  A  Typing  Tutor — Highly  interactive, 
self  paced  tutor  that  teaches  you  how  to 
type  correctly  and  increase  your  typing 
speed. 

ORIOINI 


■  A  Financial  Tool — "HELLO 
CHARLIE"  includes  Calc-86™,  a  power¬ 
ful  spreadsheet  program  that's  function¬ 
ally  comparable  to  VisiCalc®  and  Super- 
Calc®  .  With  its  many  powerful  functions 
and  commands,  Calc-86™  is  the  only 
spreadsheet  you'll  ever  need  for  your 
personal  and  business  planning  needs. 

■  An  Entertainment  Package — Six 
exciting  games,  ranging  from  mind- 
benders  like  Othello  and  Life  to  action 
games  like  Millibug  and  Chomper. 

"HELLO  CHARLIE"  turns  your  PC  into 
the  focal  point  for  education  and  amuse¬ 
ment.  So  say  hello  to  your  IBM /PC— go 
to  your  local  IBM  dealer  and  say 
"HELLO  CHARLIE"  today. 


$99.95 

Orion  Software,  Inc. 
P.O.  Box  2488 
Auburn,  AL  36831 
To  order  direct  call: 
800-821-8088 


VisiCalc  is  a  registered  trademark  of  VisiCorp. 
SuperCalc  is  a  registered  trademark  of  Sorcim. 

Hello  Charlie  is  a  trademark  of  Orion  Software,  Inc. 
Ca!c-86  is  a  trademark  of  ABS,  Inc. 

IBM  Personal  Computer  is  a  registered  trademark  of 
International  Business  Machine  Corp. 


Accessories 


Dust-Off  System  II,  Computer  cleaning  and 
maintenance  kit,  contains  Dust-Off  II  canis¬ 
ter/valve  combination,  plus  Mini-Vac  and 
Dual  Extender  accessories.  Dust-Off  II  en¬ 
ables  users  to  improve  computer  perform¬ 
ance,  protect  against  head  crash  and 
dropouts,  and  reduce  service /repair  bills  by 
blowing  away  loose  dust  and  dirt.  $42.50. 

Fiberbilt  Computer  Cases 
New  York,  NY 

Flight  Case.  Offers  complete  protection  with 
less  weight.  Rugged  fibrex  cases  feature  a 
heavy-duty  aluminum  frame  coupled  with 
steel  comers  and  a  fully  foam-padded  inte¬ 
rior.  Weigh  less  than  20  lbs.  each.  Case  for 
the  CPU  and  keyboard,  $161.  Case  for  moni¬ 
tor  and  an  IBM  or  MX-80  printer,  $171. 

FineTech  Furniture,  Inc. 

Woodbury,  TN 

Woodbury  Series.  Fine  furniture,  beautifully 
styled  and  finished,  ergonomically  designed 
and  constructed  of  the  finest  solid  red  oak  to 
house  the  pc.  From  $39  to  $399. 


REAL  ESTATE 

INVESTMENT  ANALYSIS 

FOR  UNDER$30.! 

RIP— Real  estate  Investment  Package 

A  dozen  VisiCalc’71-2-3™  templates  that 
provide  you  with  the  answers  you  need  to 
make  quick  decisions  in  today’s  changing 
real  estate  market  Each  template,  when 
combined  with  the  powerful  “what  if 
capability  of  VisiCalc™  or  1-2-3™, 
produces  accurate  answers  in  seconds. 

Templates  provided  for: 

•  Eight  year  analysis 

•  Amortization 

•  ACRS  depreciation 

•  Lease  vs  Purchase  analysis 

•  Income/expense  tracking 

•  Other  depreciation  methods 

Requires  IBM  PC  and  VisiCalc™  or  1-2-3™ 


$29.95 


M  C/VISA,  check  or  money 
order  is  accepted 
Add  $2.50  for  shipping. 


For  orders  or  dealer  information  write  or 
call  Tom  Ciulik,  3011  Bunker  Mill  Circle, 
Marietta,  GA  30062,  (404)'  973-6679. 

IBM-PC  is  a  trademark  of  International  Business  Machines  Corporation. 
VisiCalc  is  a  trademark  of  Visicorp.  1-2-3  is  a  trademark  of  Lotus 
Development  Corp. 


FMJ,  Inc. 

Torrance,  CA 

Computer  Escort  Stand .  An  all-steel  welded 
shelf  that  raises  the  IBM  above  keyboard 
level  allowing  storage  of  the  keyboard  under¬ 
neath  the  pc.  Optional  ball-bearing  slide  tray 
to  facilitate  use  of  keyboard  on  shallow 
desks.  Color  matched  to  the  pc.  $39.95. 
Printer  Pal  All-steel  stand  stores  paper  be¬ 
low  printer  for  extra  convenience  and  space. 
Includes  paper  guides,  cable  clip,  and  rubber 
feet.  Models  available  for  most  printers, 
$29.95  for  small  printer,  $39.95  for  mid-size, 
and  $54.95  for  NEC  Spinwriter  and  other 
large  printers. 

Giltronix,  Inc. 

Palo  Alto,  CA. 

The  5400  series  parallel  "Selecto-Switch." 
Centronics  compatible.  Enables  printer  shar¬ 
ing.  Available  with  one  I/O  port  and  two  or 
three  communication  ports.  Switches  thirty- 
six  lines.  Five-year  limited  warranty.  $239  to 
$279. 

The  5200  series  RS-232C  ", Selecto-Switch ." 
Enables  port  expansion  and  device  sharing. 
Available  with  one  I/O  port  and  two  to  five 
communication  ports.  Switches  twenty-four 
lines.  Manual  operation;  no  power  required. 
Five-year  limited  warranty.  $159  to  $299. 

Hi  Tech 

Santa  Cruz,  CA 

Right  Notch,  Cuts  a  sharp,  clean  square 
notch  in  exactly  the  right  place,  allowing  use 
of  the  reverse  side  of  a  disk  for  double  the 
storage.  $19.95. 

Hollander  Office  Products,  Inc. 

Santa  Paula,  CA 

Anti-static  Dustcovers.  For  all  office  ma¬ 
chines  (computers,  printers,  CRTs,  disk 
drives,  typewriters).  Made  of  clear  plastic  or 
cloth-backed  vinyls  in  saddle  tan  or  almond. 
$11.95  to  $26.95  depending  on  machine. 

Hooleon  Co. 

Cottonwood,  AZ 

Touchdowns.  Eight  enlarged  keytops  for  the 
pc/XT.  Backspace,  return/enter,  shift  (2 
keys),  tab,  0/ins,  Ctrl,  and  alt.  Nonglare  Key- 
tops  fit  over  the  tops  of  existing  control  keys, 
providing  easier  reach  and  bigger  targets.  In 
IBM  gray  or  charcoal.  $18.95  postpaid. 

Hytek 
Dayton,  MD 

The  Computer  Mug.  A  high-quality,  wide- 
bottom  mug  with  a  spill-resistant  top  featur¬ 
ing  DOS  and  Basic  commands  sealed  within 
its  thermal  sides,  pc  color  compatible.  $9.95. 

Information  Access  Corp. 

Shalimar,  FL 

PC  Companion.  Pocket-size  reference  card 
for  programmers.  This  handy  card  lists  all  of 


the  256  ASCII  codes  as  implemented  on  the 
pc  and  the  corresponding  control  code  or 
?el  welded  special  symbol.  $1. 

^rd Jundet  !fravCTSer'  InC- 
;  slide  tray  New  York,  NY 

i  shallow  Printer  X  Switch.  Permits  businesses  with 
i9.95.  two  computers  and  two  parallel  printers 

paper  be-  (dot-matrix  and  daisy  wheel)  to  direct  either 

ind  space.  computer's  output  to  either  printer  for  word 
nd  rubber  processing  or  graphics.  Including  printer  ca- 
printers,  hies,  $220. 

'mid-size  Four-Way  Printer  Sharing  Switch.  Permits 
and  other  four  students  to  get  listings  from  their  class¬ 
room  computers  on  a  single  parallel  printer. 
Including  printer  cable,  $260. 

Printer  Switch.  Permits  word  processing 
computers  and  parallel  printer  port  to  toggle 
>-Switch."  between  high-speed  dot-matrix  and  letter- 
inter  shar-  quality  daisy  wheel .  Including  printer  cables, 

nd  two  or  $165. 

hes  thirty-  _ 
ty.  $239  to  I-Protect 

Marina  Del  Rey,  CA 

i-Switch"  I-Protect  NonGlare  Leaded  Acrylic  Filter. 
e  sharing.  Nonglare  antiradiation  antiultraviolet  static 
wo  to  five  reduction  image-enhancement  filter.  $99.95. 
/enty-four  I-Protect  Plain  Leaded  Acrylic  Filter.  Reduces 

'required.  radiation  and  ultraviolet  emissions  by 
3  $299.  ninety-seven  percent.  Reduces  static  charge 
by  an  average  of  eighty  percent.  Attaches 
with  Velcro.  $49.95. 

an  square  The  Iron-Interface  Group 

owing  use  St.  Louis  Park,  hlN 

louble  the  IBM  Shorty  Cord.  Special  male  and  female 
ends  necessary  to  power  up  IBM  color  moni¬ 
tors  or  Princeton  color  monitors  (both  with 
nc*  removable  power  cords)  directly  from  the 

monitor  power  outlet  on  the  back  of  the  pc  or 
office  ma-  XT  with  the  main  computer  power  switch. 
TTs,  disk  18",  $15.95.  36",  $17.95,  add  $2  postage. 

■  plastic  or  Cord  and  Cable  Organizer.  6"  by  12"  by  4" 

•r  almond.  wire  frame  that  attaches  to  the  underside  of  a 
chine.  computer  table.  Reusable  plastic  straps  keep 

all  the  assorted  cords,  wires,  and  cables  up  in 
the  basket  and  out  of  the  way.  Helps  prevent 
accidental  power  disconnection.  $14.95,  plus 
ips  for  the  $2  postage. 

,  shift  (2  18-Inch  Monitor  Conversion  Cord.  This 
glare  Key-  cord  has  the  special  male  end  that  plugs  di- 
itrol  keys,  rectly  into  the  monitor  power  outlet  on  the 
targets.  In  back  of  the  pc  or  XT,  and  a  standard  three- 
paid.  prong  female  plug  on  the  other  end.  Allows 

user  to  turn  on  non-IBM  or  IBM  color  moni¬ 
tors  with  the  main  computer  power  switch. 
$15.95,  $2  postage. 

lity,  wide- 

op  featur-  John  James  Furnishings 
led  within  Houston,  TX 

rie.  $9.95.  Hardwood  Computer  Furnishings.  The 

Compu-Comer  line,  a  modular  furnishing 
system,  offers  many  options  and  allows  for 
custom  configurations.  The  Comp-u-Mate 
ence  card  line  consists  of  all-wood  or  laminate  work- 
lists  all  of  stations  and  matching  printer  stands.  Also 

SOftCllk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


Pick  up  a  SixPakPlus 
foryour  ibmPC. 


64K-384K 

MEMORY 


SERIAL  PORT-. 
GAME  ADAPTER  PORT  -. 
PARALLEL  PORT-. 

CLOCK/ 


IBM  is  the  registered  trademark  of  International  Business  Machines 


RESEARCH  INC. 


2372  Morse  Avenue  •  Irvine,  CA  92714 
(714)  54CM333  •  TWX  295370ASTRUR 
Dealer  Inquiries  Welcome 


Introducing SixPakPlus;"  the  refreshing  new  384KB  multi¬ 
function  card!  In  response  to  the  changing  needs  of  the  IBM 
PC  and  PC-XT  marketplace,  AST  Research,  Inc.  is  proud  to 
announce  the  latest  addition  to  our  line  of  multifunction 
enhancement  products,  the  SixPakPlus!  This  new  product  is 
the  result  of  extensive  marketing  research  into  the  needs  of 
IBM  PC  users  whether  they  have  the  original  64 K  system 
board,  the  newer  256K  system  board,  or  the  PC-XT  The 
SixPakPlus  has  been  engi¬ 
neered  to  meet  these 
needs  at  a  competi¬ 
tive  price  while  main- 


taining  AST’s  high  standards  for  quality  and  reliability. 

The  SixPak,  as  we  like  to  call  it,  could  have  been  named  for 
the  six  banks  of  RAM  on  it.  However,  we  like  to  think  that  it 
was  named  for  the  six  functions  of  the  card.  The  features  of 
the  SixPak  include: 

1.  RAM  memory  starting  at  64K,  user-expandable  in  64K 
increments  to  304K.  This  makes  the  SixPak  ideal  for 
the  PC  or  PC-XT  with  a  256K  system  board;  384K  on 
a  SixPak  added  to  256 K  on  the  system  board  yields 
640K,  the  maximum  addressable  user  memory  in 
these  systems. 

2.  One  Serial  (async)  communications  port,  con¬ 
figurable  as  either  COM1  or  COM2,  for  use  with 
serial  printers,  modems,  a  "mouse”  and  other 
serial  devices.  The  serial  port  has  on-board 
jumpers  for  easy  management  of  the  RS-232C 
lines,  simplifying  the  wiring  of  cables  in  many 
installations. 

3-  One  Parallel  (printer)  port,  configurable  as 
LPT1  or  LPT2  (LPT2  or  LPT3  when  the  IBM 
monochrome  card  is  installed),  for  use  with  the 
IBM/Epson  and  other  compatible  printers.  The 
port  is  compatible  with  IBM  diagnostics, 

4.  A  Clock-Calendar  with  battery  backup,  featur¬ 
ing  an  easily  replaceable  Lithium  battery  and  a 
quartz-controlled  timebase  for  a  high  degree 
of  accuracy. 


5.  An  optional  IBM-compatible  Game  Adap¬ 
ter  port,  for  use  with  an  IBM-type  joystick.  In 
conjunction  with  application  programming, 
this  game  port  may  be  used  for  cursor  con¬ 
trol,  in  generating  graphics  or  for  playing 
games  at  the  end  of  your  work  day! 

3.  Every  SixPak  comes  with  an  AST  Super- 
Pak  utility  diskette  which  includes  SuperDrive 
and  SuperSpool,  the  most  powerful  disk 
emulator  and  print  spooler  software  you  can 
get.  These  programs  will  greatly  enhance  the 
throughput  of  your  PC  or  PC-XT  by  emulating 
disk  drive  and  printer  access  at  RAM  speeds 
rather  than  the  normal  slower  speed  of  mechani¬ 
cal  devices.  Super Pak  is  the  first  of  such  software 
to  be  compatible  with  both  DOS  1.1  and  DOS  2.0. 


Most  important  of  all,  the  SixPak  comes  with  the  AST  "Plus/ 
AST’s  unsurpassed  reputation  for  quality,  reliability,  after- 
the-sale  support,  and  overall  design  excellence  that  gives 
our  products  the  best  price/performance  ratio  in  the  indus¬ 
try!  Hence  the  name,  SixPakPlus! 

AST  products  are  available  from  Computer  land,  Entre',  ComputerMart.  and 
selected  dealers  worldwide  CaJS  factory  If  your  dealer  does  not  have  the  AST 
products  you  want. 


The  Chaplin  character  licensed  by  Bubbles,  Inc,*  S.  A 


Draw  attention  toyourself. 

(Write  a  program  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer.) 


Let  your  imagination  take  wing. 

Think  charts.  Graphs.  Shapes.  Images. 

Use  originality,  creativity  and  color  in  programs 
that  entertain.  Educate.  Organize.  Analyze,  And 
programs  that  get  down  to  business. 

Maybe  you've  written  software  like  that.  Or 
perhaps  you're  thinking  about  it. 

If  so,  consider  this. 

You  could  draw  attention  to  yourself  by  writing 
programs^  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  on  the 
IBM  Personal  Computer.  Because  all  our  advanced 
features  (see  the  box  at  right)  make  it  faster  and  easier 
to  do  so. 

Enhanced  BASIC  already  in  ROM,  for  example, 
has  graphics  commands  already  built  in. 

And  if  you  write  a  program  using  our  Advanced 
BASIC,  you1 11  find  the  DRAW  command 
particularly  appealing.  Its  virtually  a  separate 
graphics  language  within  a  larger  language. 

Put  your  visual  together  with  both  the 
characters  and  symbols  in  ROM  for  a  simultaneous, 
text  -and  -  g  raph  ics  mix. 

Have  musical  accompaniment  as  well. 

Its  easy,  because  BASIC  controls  the  built-in 
speaker  with  a  single  command. 

Utilize  the  ten,  programmable 
function  keys.  Try'  F3  to  paint 
F4  for  lines.  F5  for  circles.  Or 
F6  for  boxes. 


IBM  PERSONAL  COMPUTER  SPECIFICATIONS 


User  Memory 

64K-640K  byics 

Microprocessor 

16-bit.  8080 
Auxiliary  Memory 

2  optional  internal 
diskette  drives,  5!^” 
160KB/180KB  or 
32GKB/360KB 
per  diskette 
Keyboard 
83  keys.  6  ft.  cord 
attaches  to 
system  unit 
10  function  keys 
ID-key  numeric  pad 
Diagnostics 
Power-on  sdf  testing 
Rarity  checking 


Display  Screens 

Color  or  monochrome 
High- resolution 
80  characters  k  25  lines 
Upper  and  lower  case 

Operating  Systems 

DOS,  UCSD  p-System, 
OVM-Stft 

Languages 

BASIC,  Pascal,  FORTRAN, 
MACRO  Assembler, 
COBOL 

Printer 

All  -pot nts- addressable 
graphics  capability 
Bidirectional 
80  dwact  ere/second 
18  diameter  styles 
9x9  character  matrix 


Permanent  Memory 

(ROM)  4QK  bytes 

Colof/GraphJcs 

Text  mode 
16  colors 

256  characters  and 
symbols  in  ROM 
Graphics  mode 
4- color  resolution: 

320h  x  200v 

Black  &  white  resolution; 
64  0hx200v 

Simultaneous  graphics  & 
text  capability 

Communications 

R3-232-C  interface 
SDLC,  Asynchronous, 
Bisynchronous  protocols 
Up  to  9600  bits  per  second 


J 


Remember  that  these  function  keys  make  your 
program  more  "friendly"  to  the  user  and,  therefore, 
more  appealing  to  us. 

In  fact,  if  you're  interested  in  licensing  your 
software,  we  could  be  interested  in  publishing  it. 

We  could  also  be  interested  even  if  it  runs  on 
another  co  m  pu  re  r.  If  wre  select  yo  u  r  so  ft  ware  ?  we '  1  i 
ask  you  to  adapt  it  to  our  system. 

So  if  you  think  your  software  is  close  to 
picture  perfect,  consider  sending  it  in. 

For  information  on  how  to  submit 
your  completed  program,  write: 

IBM  Personal  Computer, 

External  Submissions,  Dept.  765  PC, 
Armonk,  New  York  10504. 


The  IBM  Personal  Computer 

A  tool  for  modern  times 


For  more  information  on  where  co  buy  che  IBM  Personal  Computer,  call  800447-4700.  In  Aluslta  or  Hawaii,  800-447  0890. 

tUCSD  p-Sysicm  is  i  trademark  of  the-  Rt£rtHS  of  the  University  of  Califofnb,  CP/M-86  is  i  crademjjk  of  Digital  EtatiUth,  Lnc. 


Accessories 


available,  retail  computer  outlet  merchandis¬ 
ing,  which  consists  of  fixtures,  display  cases, 
and  design  services.  Comp-u-Comer,  $399. 
Comp-u-Mate ,  $199. 

Kraft  Systems  Co. 

Vista,  CA 

Paddle  Pairs.  Feature  an  optimum  185- 
degree  knob  rotation  for  faster  operator  re¬ 
sponse  and  higher  scores.  Contain  custom 
potentiometers  designed  specifically  for  the 
pc,  thereby  assuring  higher  resolution  and 
accuracy  with  no  '"hop."  One  pair,  $49.95. 
Precision  Joystick.  Plug-in  compatible  with 
the  pc.  Features  "spring-centering"  and  "free- 
floating"  stick  modes  selectable  by  switching 
external  toggle  switches  on  the  bottom  of  the 
case,  trim  controls  on  each  axis,  and  a  full 
one-year  warranty.  Offers  versatility  for 
both  business  and  games  applications. 
$69.95. 

LinTek,  Inc. 

Grand  Rapids,  MI 

The  Monitor  Mover.  Adjustable  mechanical 
arm  that  holds  the  computer  display  off  the 
user's  desk,  freeing  up  work  space.  Adjusts  in 


PUT  3M  SCOTCH  BRAND 
±  DISKETTES  FROM 

MY  Supplier,  inc. 

WFr  UNDER  YOUR  TREE 

WL 

Let  us  fill  all  your 
computer  supply  needs. 


•  Ring  King  Diskette 
Storage  Equipment 

•  Paper,  Binders  &  Labels 

•  Ribbons  &  Printwheels 

•  And  Now... 

COLOR  CODER_pLUS 


C.O.D. 


CALL  TOLL  FREE 
800-448-4016 
IN  CA  800-556-6786 


MY  Supplier ,  inc. 

COMPUTER  &  WORD  PROCESSING  SUPPLIES 
348  N.  MOORPARK  ROAD 
THOUSAND  OAKS,  CA  91360 


four  ways  to  provide  complete  flexibility  of 
placement  in  the  work  area.  Features  all  steel 
construction,  off-white  urethane  finish. 
$129.95. 

The  System  Sidekick.  Holds  the  computer 
system  off  the  work  area  at  the  side  of  the 
desk.  The  system  stays  near  the  operator  yet 
conveniently  and  securely  out  of  the  way. 
Clamps  to  most  desks.  $79.95. 

LoTech  Ltd.,  Inc. 

San  Francisco,  CA 

Patch  Computer  Bug  Spray.  Makes  a  perfect 
holiday  gift  for  people  who  have  everything, 
or  have  had  it  with  their  computers.  While 
"The  Pet  of  Silicon  Valley"  may  not  get  the 
bugs  out  of  your  system,  it  will  remove  grime 
from  most  video  display  screens.  The  prod¬ 
uct  includes  tongue-in-cheek  directions, 
laced  with  heavy  doses  of  computer  jargon 
and  "disk-claimers."  $5.95. 

Luxor  Corp. 

Waukegan,  IL 

Model  LE-MSS.  18"  by  24"  table  with  adjust¬ 
able  sliding  keyboard  shelf  provides  mobile 
storage  for  computers  with  detached  key¬ 
boards.  4"  casters,  two  with  brakes.  $119. 

Metafab/Microcomputer  Division 
Hillsboro,  OR 

Microbridge-1  and  Microbridge~2.  Durable 
steel  printer  stand.  Slotted  for  bottom  feed 
printers,  if  needed.  Creates  storage  space  un¬ 
derneath  printer  paper  supplies.  Textured 
and  finished  in  neutral  beige.  MB-1  (for  80- 
column  printers),  $29.95.  MB-2  (for  132-col¬ 
umn  printers),  $33.95. 

Microcomputer  Accessories,  Inc. 

Los  Angeles,  CA 

CRT  Cover  A  protective  cover  for  the  pc 
monochrome  or  color  monitor.  Made  of 
heavy-gauge,  flexible  vinyl  that  is  sewn  with 
white  seam  binding.  $15. 

Keyboard  and  Disk  Drive  Covers.  Preserve 
the  sleek  silhouette  of  the  pc  while  shielding 
vulnerable  areas  from  dust  and  dirt.  The  key¬ 
board  cover  is  durable  smoke-tinted  acrylic. 
The  drive  cover  blends  with  the  IBM's  styling 
and  has  a  cushioned  edge  that  forms  a  dirt- 
proof  seal.  Both  dust  covers,  $22.  Keyboard 
cover,  $12.  Disk  drive  cover,  $10. 

The  Keyboard  Storage  Drawer.  Turns  nar¬ 
row  surfaces  such  as  credenzas  or  typewriter 
returns  into  computer  workstations.  Features 
a  3  1/2"  high,  18-gauge  steel  support  unit 
upon  which  the  system  is  placed.  A  sliding 
cantilever  drawer  holds  the  keyboard,  ex¬ 
tends  to  a  locked  position,  and  becomes  an 
11"  work  platform  with  a  wrist-rest  pad.  $89. 
The  Keyboard  Storage  Stand.  Consists  of  the 
3  1/2"  high,  heavy-duty  steel  frame.  It  sup¬ 
ports  and  raises  the  system  and  CRT,  provid¬ 
ing  keyboard  storage  underneath.  $44. 

The  Manual  Easel.  Made  of  thick  bronze- 


softcilk  fi 


tinted  acrylic  with  an  extra-wide  lip.  It  makes 
pc  and  software  manuals  easy  to  use  by  prop¬ 
ping  them  up  at  a  comfortable  viewing  angle. 
Has  protective  pads  to  prevent  skidding.  $20. 
Printer  Covers.  Protective  dustcovers  for  the 
Epson  MX/FX  80  printer  (PC720)  and  for  the 
Epson  MX100  printer  (PC730).  Made  of 
heavy-gauge,  flexible  vinyl  that  is  sewn  with 
white  seam  binding.  PC720,  $13.  PC730, 
$17. 

The  Printer  Stands.  Available  in  two  sizes,  el¬ 
evate  the  printer  for  smooth  paper  feed  and 
storage.  Made  of  reinforced  20-gauge  steel, 
with  a  baked-enamel  finish  and  felt  pads  on 
the  bottom  to  reduce  noise  and  vibration, 
they  will  support  up  to  100  lb.  without  bow¬ 
ing.  The  Printer  Stands  are  available  for  pa¬ 
per  8  1/2"  wide  and  for  paper  14  7/8"  wide. 
Both  sizes  are  also  available  with  bottom 
slots  to  accommodate  bottom-feeding  print¬ 
ers.  $25  and  $30. 

The  Rolltop  100  Disk  File.  Makes  storing  and 
locating  floppy  disks  easy.  Holds  100  5  1/4" 
disks  and  includes  ten  index  tab/dividers 
to  keep  programs  organized.  Constructed  of 
textured  gray  unbreakable  ABS  plastic  with  a 
tambour  door  of  baked-on  bronze  enamel 
paint  and  antiskid  feet.  $36. 

The  Tilt'n  Turn.  A  CRT  display  stand  that 
allows  computer  users  to  reduce  screen  glare, 
eye  strain,  and  neck  craning.  Features  a  ten¬ 
sion  spring  which  allows  completely  stable 
movement,  30-degree  tilting  and  360-degree 
turning,  without  removing  the  CRT.  Will  fit 
any  CRT  with  feet  separation  less  than  11" 
wide  and  10  1/4"  deep.  $40. 

The  Under  Carriage  Platform  Drawer.  Per¬ 
forms  the  same  function  as  the  Keyboard 
Storage  Drawer,  but  the  sliding  cantilever 
drawer  is  modified  to  suspend  under  the  top 
of  a  desk,  shelf,  or  tabletop.  It  requires  a 
3  1/4"  by  21"  clearance.  Fully  extended,  the 
platform  drawer  places  the  keyboard  at  a 
very  comfortable  typing  height.  $54. 

Micro  Format 

Buffalo  Grove,  IL 

Micro  Format  Starter  Kit.  Includes  500  sheets 
blank  letterhead,  500  continuous  address  la¬ 
bels,  500  continuous  index  cards.  $24. 

MF  850.  Blank  continuous  mailing  labels.  La¬ 
bel  size  5"  by  2  15/16".  500  labels  per  pack¬ 
age,  $19.50. 

Clean  Edge  Kit.  White,  blank,  500  9  1/2"  by 
11"  (81/2"  by  11"  detached)  letterhead,  200 
continuous  envelopes.  $25. 

Continuous  Index  Card  Kit.  4"  by  6",  7"  by 
4"  overall;  500  yellow  cards,  500  blue  cards, 
500  green  cards,  500  red  cards.  $49.50. 
Continuous  Post  Cards.  Send  as  a  customer 
notice,  appointment  reminder,  and  save  on 
lower  postal  rates.  Meet  all  postal  require¬ 
ments.  6'  by  4"  after  margins  removed,  500 
per  package.  One  package  $14.50,  five  pack¬ 
ages  $58.50. 

Trans  O  Grams.  Computer-generated  delin- 
r  the  IBM  PersorUjf  Computer  December  1983 


Business 

Decision 


Letfc  be  honest. 

Despite  the  “personal  computer 
revolution”  in  today’s  office, 
a  lot  of  business  decisions  get  made 
in  some  pretty  arbitrary  ways.  , 

That’s  because  most  of  the  software  for 
personal  computers  isn’t  up  to  the  job  of 
helping  you  draw  conclusions  from  the  mass 
of  information  in  your  business. 

THE  GREAT  PERSONAL  COMPUTER 

-un-revolution.” 

Up  to  now,  to  use  a  personal  computer  V 
effectivcly  in  the  real  world,  you  needed  to 
use  five  different  types  of  software  packages:  V 
Electronic  spreadsheet,  information  manage¬ 
ment,  graphics,  word  processing,  and  tele- 
communications. 

Ton  had  to  learn  how  to  use  these  five  different,  ^ 
unmatched  software  packages  before  you  could 
make  the  computer  do  what  you  wanted  it  to  do. 

And  information  stored  in  one  of  these  packages 
would  rarely  fit  into  another  without  a  lot  of  trouble. 
This  means  you  had  to  spend  your  valuable  time 
pushing  buttons  and  learning  to  become  a  computer 
expert. 

Instead  of  using  the  personal  computer  as  a  tool  for 
business  decisions. 

Not  exactly  a  shining  moment  in  the  personal 
computer  revolution. 

THE  CONTEXT  MBA:m 
A  SIMPLE  IDEA  WHOSE  TIME  HAS  COME. 

The  Context  MBA  is  software  for  the  IBM  PC,  PC- 
XT,  and  Hewlett-Packard  Series  200  personal  com¬ 
puters  that  combines  all  the  functions  you’ll  ever  need 
-  spreadsheet,  information  management,  report  writ¬ 
ing,  graphics,  and  communications  -  into  a  single, 
easy-to-use  package. 

The  result  is  a  software  package  that’s  literally  “greater 
than  the  sum  of  its  parts.” 

FIVE  SCREENS  -  NO  WAITING. 

With  the  MBA  you  can  connect  your  personal 
computer  to  your  company’s  main  computer  and 
retrieve  all  kinds  of  business  data.  Like  sales,  product, 
or  customer  figures. 

Sort,  search,  update,  and  store  this  information  in 
your  personal  computer.  Analyze  it,  prepare  sales 
forecasts  or  study  new  business  opportunities  in 


minutes,  instead  of 
hours. 

While  you’re  using  the  spreadsheet,  use  the 
MBA’s  graphics  function  to  make  spreadsheet  figures 
come  alive  on  your  screen  in  charts  or  graphs.  So  you 
can  visualize  the  effect  of  possible  changes  to  your 
business. 

This  year,  or  five  years  from  now.  Instantly. 

When  you’ve  made  sense  out  of  the  possibilities,  use 
the  MBA’s  full-function  executive  report  writer  to  put 
these  words,  numbers,  and  graphs  into  a  finished, 
printed  report. 

At  last,  you  can  use  a  personal  computer  as  a  decision 
tool  to  turn  more  profit  from  the  mountain  of 
information  that  crosses  your  desk  every  day. 

So  now  even  “non-computer  people”  can  make  hcads- 
or-tails  out  of  the  personal  computer  revolution. 

A  GOOD  BUSINESS  DECISION. 

Make  a  good,  well-informed  business  decision  right 
now: 

Call  us  at  l-800^t37-1513  (in  California,  call 
1-800-592-2527),  and  get  the  name  of  your  nearest 
computer  store  for  a  live  demonstration  of  the 
Context  MBA.  We’ll  also  send  you  a  copy  of  our  tell- 
it-like-it-is  brochure.  Software  Explained . 

If  you  have  an  IBM  Personal  Computer,  ask  for  our 
free  Context  MBA  Sampler  Disk  for  a  live  demo  of 
the  MBA  on  your  own  PC. 

Context 


CONTEXT  MANAGEMENT  SYSTEMS 
23868  Hawthorne  Blvd. 

Torrance.  CA  90505 
(213)  378-8277 


Persona /  Computer  Software  for  Business  Decisions. 


Accessories 

quent  notices,  collection  reminders,  new 
product  announcements,  or  order  acknowl¬ 
edgements.  Company  name  and  address  can 
be  crash  imprinted  or  computer  imprinted  in 
the  upper  left-hand  comer.  Computer  gener¬ 
ates  message  in  the  middle  section  and  the  re¬ 
cipient's  name  and  address  in  the  lower 
right-hand  comer.  Detach  the  top  copy  (your 
file  or  follow-up  copy)  and  message  is  ready 
to  mail.  100  per  package.  One  package,  $15. 
Five  packages,  $65. 

Membership  ID  Cards.  Blank  ten-point 
Kromekote  die-cut  membership  card.  Form 
size  9"  by  3  1/2',  1,000  forms  per  package. 
$79. 

Continuous  Pressure-Sensitive  Labeb .  Made 
of  top-quality,  smudge-proof  paper,  these  la¬ 
bels  have  permanent  adhesive  for  easy  appli¬ 
cation.  Fan-folded  and  perforated  every  12 
inches,  each  label  measures  3  1/2"  by  15/16" 
Holds  up  to  five  lines  of  type.  Available  in 
white,  pink,  blue,  and  yellow,  500  per  pack¬ 
age.  One  package,  $6.50.  Five  packages,  $3. 
Continuous  Rolodex  Cards.  Create  an  index¬ 
ing  system  with  one  run  through  computer's 
printer  with  these  continuous  rotary  index 
cards.  These  sturdy  white  cards  are  designed 


MICRO 

11306  Southland  Road 
Forest  Park.  Ohio  45240 


TOTAL  ACCESS  TO 

Software 

°  BUSINESS  0  EDUCATIONAL 
°  GRAPHICS/  °  PERSONAL 
UTILITIES  PLANNING 
°  WORD  o BOOKS 

PROCESSING 

o  ENTERTAINMENT 

wmmammmamwvwwwwmiwvwvm^www 

Hardware  and 
Accessories 

•  PRINTERS  •  DISK  DRIVES 

•  INTERFACES  •  MONITORS 


MODEMS 


•  DISKS 


•  RIBBONS 

WWWMAAAAIWWWVWWWWWWWWWWWMW 

0B:  CALL 
1-800-543-1114 

Ohio  Alaska -Hawaii 
Call  513-025-5803 
CINCINNATI  CUSTOMERS  USE 
OUP  SOFTWARE  PICK-UP  FACILITY 


for  use  with  all  Rolodex-brand  files.  Be  sure 
to  order  correct  size  for  your  particular  file. 
500  per  package.  4"  by  2  1/6" :  one  package, 
$9,  five  packages,  $40.  5"  by  3":  one  pack¬ 
age,  $10,  five  packages,  $45. 

Clean  Edge  Continuous  Forms.  High-quality 
white  bond  produced  with  perforations  cut 
so  finely  that  it  appears  to  be  cut  when  the 
perforated  stubs  are  removed.  500  sheets  per 
package.  One  package,  $12.  Five  packages, 
$50. 

Continuous  Envelopes,  Pocket  Style.  200 
continuous  envelopes,  $16.  1,000  continuous 
envelopes,  $69. 

Rolodex-Style  Card  Kit  (5"  by  3"  detached), 
500  blue,  500  red,  500  green.  $39.50,  individ¬ 
ual  packages  $15. 

National  Field  Sales,  Inc. 

Broomall,  PA 

Stedi  Watt.  Complete  line  of  AC  power  line 
filters.  Stedi  Watt  protects  computers  from 
damaging  voltage  fluctuations  and  harmful 
noise,  $64.50. 

O'Sullivan  Industries,  Inc. 

Lamar,  MO 

Computer  Furniture,  CT720  Series.  Com¬ 
puter  work  center  and  printer  stand  with  ac¬ 
cessories  to  meet  space  requirements. 
Finished  in  bartonwood  and  dark  brown  vi¬ 
nyl  laminates.  Steel  support  rails.  Work  cen¬ 
ter,  $169.95.  Printer  stand,  $159.95.  Comer 
adapter,  $49.94.  45°  comer  adapter,  $39.95. 
Computer  Furniture,  CT710  Series.  Includes 
computer  work  center  and  printer  stand  with 
accessories  to  meet  space  requirements.  Fin¬ 
ished  in  light  hickory  vinyl  laminates.  Work 
center,  $139.95.  90°  comer  adapter,  $49.95. 
Work  center,  $149.95.  45°  comer  adapter, 
$39.95.  Printer  stand,  $159.95. 

Paper  Tractor 
Goleta,  CA 

Paper  Tractor.  Carries  ordinary  paper 
through  tractor  feed  printers.  Paper  Tractor 
works  with  all  major  printers  and  does  not 
require  hardware  changes  or  time-consum¬ 
ing  installation.  Paper  Tractor  holds  checks, 
invoices,  letters,  and  legal-size  paper.  $11.95, 
plus  $1.50  shipping. 

PC  Goodie  Company 

Sherman  Oaks,  CA 

Label  Kit  PC  Disk  Organizer.  End  the  hunt 
for  what's  on  the  disk.  Locate  files  at  a  glance 
by  labeling  all  your  disks  in  matter  of  min¬ 
utes.  Prints  alphabetized  labels  for  floppy 
disks.  Works  with  any  disk  in  PC-DOS  for¬ 
mat,  one  disk  drive,  and  any  tractor  feed 
printer.  Kit  includes  300  hard-to-find,  5-in 
pin  feed  labels,  and  complete  instructions. 
$59.95. 

PC  Products,  Inc. 

Beverly  Hills,  CA 

File-Ette.  The  perfect  blend  of  function  and 


furniture  for  your  disks.  A  solid  oak,  air¬ 
tight  and  static-proof  disk  box  with  an 
eighty-disk  capacity  that  also  accepts  the 
disk  cartons  for  files  within  a  file.  Comes 
with  tab  cards  and  adjustable  separator  pan¬ 
els.  $39.95,  $2.25  shipping. 

QuickGuide .  The  best  tutorial  and  reference 
guide  for  the  pc  used  by  many  schools.  Sim¬ 
ple  examples  and  programs  take  the  user 
from  day  one  to  confidence  on  the  pc.  Com¬ 
plete  command  reference  charts — convenient 
size — perfect  for  new  user,  office  help,  etc. 
Antidote  to  manual  shock.  $12.95. 

PerfectData  Corp. 

Chatsworth,  CA 

Micro  Maintenance  Kit.  Intended  for  peri¬ 
odic  preventive  maintenance  and  cleaning  of 
flexible  disk  drives,  tape  drives,  printers, 
CRT  screens,  and  keyboards.  $39.95. 

Type  Element  Cleaning  Kits.  For  printwheels 
and  Selectric  type  balls.  Removes  paper  dust 
and  ink  residue,  which  create  problems  with 
legibility.  $19.95. 

Head  Cleaning  Kits.  For  5  1/4-in  and  8-in 
flexible  disk  drives.  Safely  cleans  single-  or 
dual-sided  drives  without  field  engineering 
assistance.  $29.95. 

Tech  Maintenance  Kit.  Provides  the  com¬ 
puter  user  with  the  proper  materials  to  clean 
read/write  heads,  guides,  capstans,  tape 
paths,  and  other  working  components  of 
magnetic  peripheral  devices.  $24.95. 
Antistatic  Kit.  The  spray  in  this  kit  prevents 
static  buildup  around  sensitive  computer 
equipment.  When  applied  directly  to  carpets, 
floors,  furniture,  and  around  computers,  an¬ 
noying  and  harmful  electrostatic  charges  are 
minimized.  $6.95. 

Video  Display  Cleaning  Kit.  Recommended 
for  cleaning  terminal  screens  and  keyboards. 
Contains  two  four-ounce  bottles  of  video  dis¬ 
play  cleaning  solution,  pump  spray  dis¬ 
penser,  and  fifty  cloths.  $12.95. 

Perma  Power  Electronics,  Inc. 

Chicago,  IL 

Perma  Power  Surge  Suppressors.  Protect 
computer  circuitry  and  data  programs  from 
power  line  voltage  surges  of  both  types— 
normal  mode  (line-to-line)  caused  by  power 
line  switching  and  common  mode  (line-to- 
ground)  caused  by  lightning.  Available  sin¬ 
gle-  or  multiple-outlet  models.  Extended  life 
units  guaranteed  for  three  years.  Prices  start 
at  $30. 

Personal  Computer  Accessories 
Redmond,  WA 

Antistatic  Dust  Cover  Set .  Attractive, 
heavy-gauge  clear  vinyl.  One  cover  fits  the 
monitor  (advise  type)  and  pc,  a  second  cover 
fits  the  keyboard.  $19.95.  Printer  covers  (ad¬ 
vise  type/size)  $10.90. 


Quality  you  expect,  at  a  price  you  don’t. 

BECK  DOUBLE  DENSITY  DISKETTES 


DOUBLE  SIDED 


ea. 


Our  message  to  you  is  simple.  If  you  like  the  quality  of  Dysan.  Verbatim.  3M,  et  al,  you’ll  like  the  quality  of 
Beck  soft  sector;  5W'  flexible  diskettes.  The  only  major  difference  is  cost.  We're  less  expensive.  In  fact,  a  lot  less  expensive. 


Why  does  Beck  cost  less? 


What  about  quality  and  reliability? 


s27\ 


(in  New  Hampshire  call  924-3821) 


Door  to  Door  in  48  hrs. 


Our  philosophy  is:  Excellent  quality  and  reliability,  at  a  cost 
that  beats  the  jackets  off  other  diskettes.  We  can  do  it  be¬ 
cause  we  (1)  put  our  money  into  the  product,  not  mega¬ 
marketing  schemes  and  fancy  packaging;  and  (2)  sell  our 
money- saving  25-diskette  pack  to  you  direct  via  a  toll  free 
order  line,  so  you  get  fast  door-to-door  service  efficiently. 


When  you  buy  Beck,  you’ve  got  the  best. 
Beck  Quality.  Beck  Reliability. 

And,  of  course,  Beck  Price. 

1 D,  soft  sector  5  W'  diskette  $2.19  each 
2D,  soit  sector  5'k"  diskette  $2.79  each 

For  IBM,  Apple,  TRS  and  97%  of  popular 
microcomputers. 


At  Beck,  our  success  as  a  diskette  manufacturer  depends 
upon  our  ability  to  provide  you  with  a  fully  reliable,  quality 
diskette  -  every  time.  For  that  reason  we  take  no  shortcuts 
You  get  the  best  because  we  are  committed  to  excellence. 
Every  diskette  is  manufactured  to  very  strict  quality  stand¬ 
ards,  We  test  and  retest  21  times  throughout  the  manufac¬ 
turing  process  to  insure  compliance  with  no  less  than  42 
rigid  specifications.  We  make  sure  you  get  the  very  best  - 
a  100%  certified,  100%  error  free  diskette. 


Our  satisfaction 
money-back  guarantee 
and  full  7 year  warr¬ 
anty  / are  proof  of 
our  commitment  to 
excellence  and 
confidence  in 
our  product. 


Order  Now 
Toll  Free 


BECK 


COO’S 

CASH 

ONLY 


Corporate  Accounts  Welcome 


Order  Toll  Free  1-800-232-5634.  Available  in  25  pack  only,  plus  freight.  Complete 
with  hub  reinforcing  rings,  Tyvek  envelopes,  color  coded  user  iabtes,  and  nonmetallic 
write  protect  tabs.  Aii  Beck  Diskettes  meet  or  exceed  ANSI  specifications. 


Accessories 


Picture  House 
Daytona  Beach,  FL 

Basic  Comfort  X7.  Has  a  15"  by  25"  work 
area  (reading  and  writing)  directly  in  front  of 
the  operator.  The  keyboard  height  is  set  for 
maximum  comfort.  Keyboard  slides  forward 
for  protection  when  not  in  use.  $189. 

Precision  Data  Products 
Grand  Rapids,  MI 

3M  Disks .  Available  in  storage  box  or  bulk 
with  or  without  envelopes;  immediate  ship¬ 
ment.  Start  at  $1.85  each. 

Epson  MX-80,  MX-100  Ribbons.  Premium- 
grade  cartridge  ribbons,  matrix  ink.  Starting 
at  $5  each. 

Reymont  Associates 
Boca  Raton,  FL 

BASIC  AM  the  Language  of  Love.  A  light¬ 
hearted  musical  look  at  the  effect  that  per¬ 
sonal  computer  addiction  has  on  our 
personal  lives.  45-rpm,  sung  in  country  & 
western  style.  $5. 

RKS  Industries,  Inc. 

Scotts  Valley,  CA 

Surge  Sentry  Model  SS-120-M.  A  120-volt 


STOP  WAITING  FOR 
YOUR  IBM  PC! 

Install  QUICKON! 

Tired  of  waiting  for  your  PC  to  come 
on  after  you  flip  the  switch?  Your 
PC  will  come  alive  in  3-4  sec.  or 
less  with  QUICKON,  NO  MATTER 
HOW  MUCH  MEMORY  YOU  HAVE! 
Easy  installation: 

•  Remove  your  IBM  BIOS  ROM 
and  plug  it  into  our  QUICKON 
Module. 

•  Plug  QUICKON  into  the  PC’s 
ROM  socket.  No  Expansion  Slot 
needed. 

Works  with  all  IBM  PCs  EXCEPT 
the  XT. 

No  PC  warranty  problems  -  easily 
removable. 

INTRODUCTORY  offer  - 
$49  postpaid 

US.  money  order  or  check.  NY  buyers  add 
8.25%  tax.  Foreign  orders  ■  $65 


Security 

Microsystems 

Consultants 


16  Flagg  Place  Suite  102S 
Staten  Island,  NY  10304 
(212)  667-1019 


unit  with  six  receptacles.  Protect  entire  sys¬ 
tems,  such  as  a  computer  and  several  periph¬ 
erals,  with  just  one  unit.  UL  listed,  five 
picosecond  response  time.  100  joules  energy- 
dissipation  rating  at  100  microseconds. 
$104.50. 

Surge  Sentry  Model  SS-120-D.  Protect 
equipment  from  voltage  drops  or  voltage 
outages.  When  the  voltage  drops  below  a 
safe  level,  the  unit  shuts  off;  check  and  reset 
equipment  before  returning  power.  Indicator 
lights  indicate  if  a  dropout  has  occurred. 
Equipped  with  four  120-volt  receptacles,  five 
picosecond  response  time,  100  joules  energy- 
dissipation  rating.  $132. 

Surge  Sentry  Model  SS-120-H .  A  120-volt 
surge  protector  designed  to  protect  equip¬ 
ment  using  standard  three-prong,  NEMA 
5-15P  plugs.  Simply  plug  the  Surge  Sentry 
into  any  standard  120-volt  outlet  and  plug 
the  equipment  you  want  to  protect  into  it.  UL 
listed,  five  picosecond  response,  100  joules 
rated  energy  dissipation  at  100  microse¬ 
conds.  $89.50. 

Surge  Sentry  Model  SS-120-SC.  Select  the 
peripheral  to  control  the  power  on/ off  of  an 
entire  computer  or  audio /video  system.  Five 
picosecond  response,  100  joules  rated  energy 
dissipation  at  100  microseconds.  $149. 

Safeware 
Columbus,  OH 

Safeware.  Insurance  covers  all  hardware, 
media,  and  purchased  software.  Safeware 
provides  full  replacement  value  after  a  low 
$50  deductible.  Protect  your  system  against 
power  surges,  theft,  fire,  accidental  damage, 
and  more.  Coverage  for  one  year  from  $35. 

Screen  Data  Corp. 

Cedar  Knolls,  NJ 

SDC  Antiglare.  Eliminates  glare,  reducing  fa¬ 
tigue,  irritation,  high  error  rates,  eyestrain, 
and  employee  dissatisfaction.  Mounts  using 
Velcro.  $44.50. 

Hi-Lo  Ergonomic  Computer  Tables.  An 
ergonomic  table  counterbalanced  to  the  com¬ 
puter  so  that  there  are  no  knobs  to  adjust  to 
raise  or  lower  the  table.  Just  push  or  pull  and 
the  table  adjusts  easily  and  quickly.  $375. 

Secure-It,  Inc, 

East  Longmeadow,  MA 
Kablit .  Security  system  guards  computers 
and  peripherals  against  theft.  Fits  most  units. 
Kablit  fasteners  attach  to  equipment  using 
existing  screws;  a  steel  cable  passes  through 
the  fasteners,  preventing  the  removal  of  the 
screws.  No  special  tools  required.  $49.95. 

Siechert  &  Wood  Technical 

Publications 

Pasadena,  CA 

SuperTabs.  A  set  of  sixteen  Mylar-reinforced, 
tab  dividers  that  go  in  the  IBM  DOS  and  Ba¬ 
sic  manuals.  Each  divider  has  quick  reference 


information  on  it  that  summarizes  the  section 
that  follows.  Available  for  all  versions  of 
DOS.  $9.95. 

SolveWare 
Redondo  Beach,  CA 
SongWare.  Plays  your  choice  from  a  list  of 
eighteen  holiday  carols,  including  "The 
Hacker's  Carol"  (written  just  for  IBM  own¬ 
ers!).  The  current  verse  appears  on  a  colorful 
decorated  screen,  with  the  current  line 
highlighted  for  singalong  fun.  "Background" 
mode  plays  the  first  verse  of  each  song  in  a 
repeating  series.  $16.95. 

Station  Products 
Los  Angeles,  CA 

Softwear.  Authentic  hickory-striped  blue 
denim  engineer  caps  with  sewn-on  patches. 
Choice  of  "Software  Engineer,"  "Computer 
Engineer,"  or  "Hardware  Engineer";  availa¬ 
ble  in  adult  sizes:  S-M-L-XL  (6  3/4  thru  7  5/8) 
Children's  sizes:  XS-S-M-L.  $4.95  each,  plus 
$1.50  postage. 

StorWares 
Cleveland,  OH 

Executive  Disk  Storage  Systems.  Hand¬ 
crafted  solid  oak  or  walnut  furniture  features 
brass  piano  hinges  and  clasps,  storage  for 
seventy-five  disks,  felt  bottoms,  two  remov¬ 
able  dividers,  and  a  fine,  hand-rubbed  lac¬ 
quer  finish.  Oak,  $50.  Walnut,  $60. 

Sun  Research,  Inc. 

New  Durham,  NH 

Mayday.  Protection  from  blackout,  brown¬ 
out  surges,  and  spikes.  Uninterruptable 
power  system  isolates  your  computer  sys¬ 
tem.  Sizes  from  150  watts  to  1,000  watts 
available.  Including  battery  pack,  from  $240 
to  $2,795. 

Line  Conditioner/ Voltage  Regulator.  Isolates 
your  computer  system  from  brownouts, 
surges,  spikes,  and  RFI.  MDS  150,  $90, 
MDS-250,  $185.  MDS  250,  $275.  MDS- 
1000,  $500. 

Systems  Management  Associates 
Raleigh,  NC 

Templates.  Plastic,  dual-sided  keyboard  tem¬ 
plates  that  provide  comprehensive  documen¬ 
tation  of  popular  pc  software  packages. 
1-2-3,  WordStar,  dBase  II,  DOS  2.0/ Basic, 
DOS  1.1/Basic,  EasyWriter  II,  Supercalc2, 
and  a  custom  write-on  model  are  all  immedi¬ 
ately  available.  $14.95. 

Tech  Designs,  Inc. 

Ellicott  City,  MD 

Magstik.  Magnetic  self-centering  joystick. 
Improved  centering  adjustment.  Self-cen¬ 
tering  easily  defeated.  Dual  side-by-side 
pushbutton  switches  in  a  human-engineering 
case.  Comfortable  in  either  hand.  $64.95. 
Game  paddle.  Stylish  handles  designed  for 


HO 


saftalk  /or  the  IBM  Personal  Compufef  1983 


Instant  one -button  color  printing. 


Press  here. 


It's  just  that  easy!  Any  time  you  want  to  print  what's  on  your 
Apple's  screen  just  hit  the  copy  button  on  your  Transtar  315 
color  printer  with  our  PICS  card  installed,  and  it's  done!  No 
special  programming,  no  lengthy  code  sequences,  no  need  to 
exit  your  program!  Just  press  the  button  and  it  prints! 

By  adding  the  optional  PICS  card  to  your  $599  Transtar  315 
color  printer,  you've  opened  up  a  whole  new  world  of  easy  color 
printing.  Por  the  first  time  ever,  our  PICS  parallel  interface  card 
enables  you  to  screendump  virtually  any  program  --  graphics, 
charts,  games  -  even  copy-protected  software!  Specially  design¬ 
ed  only  for  the  Apple  II,  II+,  lie,  and  Franklin  computers,  the 
Transtar  315  PICS  card  does  the  work  of  a  parallel  card  and  a 
lot  more  and  costs  only  $1 19,95. 

At  the  push  of  a  button,  Transtar's  innovative  new  4-color  dia¬ 
gonal  ribbon  will  print  up  to  7  colors  and  more  than  30  shades 
in  a  single  pass. 

The  315  is  precis  ion -built  to  exacting  standards  by  Seikosha, 
the  most  experienced  company  of  the  famous  Seiko  group- 
recognized  worldwide  for  quality  and  dependability.  In  fact, 
one  of  the  nicest  things  about  Transtar's  6-month  warranty 
on  parts  and  labor  is  that  you'll  probably  never  use  itl 

Innovative,  inexpensive,  dependable,  easy:  the  Transtar  315, 
Color  printing  has  never  looked  so  good! 

Only  $599. 


PICS  cards  are  currently  available  tor  Apples  and  F rankling. 
Pits  card*  lor  other  computers  will  be  available  >n  the  future. 


Transtar 

A  Vivitan  Computer  Product 


P.O,  Box  C-96975,  Bellevue,  WA  98009 


Time  management  •  Expense  reports  •  Depreciation 
schedules  •  Sales  leads  •  Legal  documents 

•  Loan  amortization  •  Memos  *  Student  records  • 

Glossary  of  terms  •  Estimates  • 
Maintenance  records  •  Rolodex 

•  Mailing  lists  *  Marketing  research  polls  •  Sports 
statistics  •  Dealer  inventories  •  Record  and  tape 
libraries  •  Medical/dental  records  •  Phone  and 
address  lists  •  Club  memberships  •  Price  lists 

•  Meteorological  data  *  Abstracts  •  Magazine 
subscriptions  •  Appointment  schedules 
Flight  logs  •  Contracts 

•  Client  records  * 

Personnel  data  • 

Stock  market  analyses 


ntment  schedules  • 

out 


If  you  use  a  filing  cabinet  and  a  calculator  in  your 
office,  you  need  Data  Design,™  Data  Design  helps  you 
manage  information.  Easily. 

Design  forms  to  your  specifications.  Then  let  Data 
Design  store,  retrieve,  and  calculate  automatically 
Browse  through  your  data  in  any  order  without  slow 
sorts.  Print  reports,  instantly!  You  can  even  transfer 
your  data  by  telephone  between  any  two  Personal 
Computers. 

Data  Design  is  so  easy  to  use  you  might  not 
even  need  to  read  our  manual  Press  just 


one  key  for  a  tutorial  that  addresses  whatever  you're 
working  on  at  that  moment! 

In  addition,  Data  Design  integrates  with  D2-3,™ 
WordStar®  VisiCalc,®  and  other  popular  IBM- 
compatible  software.  Data  Design  may  be  the  only 
other  software  package  you'll  ever  need. 

Stop  by  your  local  computer  store  for  a  demon¬ 
stration  or  call  us  at  503/641-5223, 


soft 


Insoft,  Inc, 

7933  S.W.  Cirrus  Dr 
Beaverton,  Oregon  97005 


Data  Design 
does  it  all. 


Data  Design  works  with  12SK  IBM  PCs  and  most  compatibles. 

WordStar  is  a  registered  trademark  of  MicroPro.  Inc.  VisiCak  is  a  registered  trademark 
olVisiCorp,  1-2-3  is  a  trademark  of  Lotus  Development  Cm 


Accessories 


comfort  in  either  hand.  Trimmer  control  al¬ 
lows  paddle  to  be  matched  precisely  to  com¬ 
puter  or  particular  game.  Printed  circuit 
design  for  reliability.  $34.95. 

Tech  Sketch 
Fairfield,  NJ 

Computer  Light  Pen .  Compatible  with  Ap¬ 
ple,  Atari,  Commodore,  and  IBM.  $39.95. 

3M 

St.  Paul,  MN 

3M  Head-Cleaning  Disk,  Designed  to  keep 
your  read/write  heads  clean,  lessening  your 
chances  of  contamination.  $33.35. 

Trace  Systems,  Inc. 

Mir.  View,  CA 

The  SoundTrap,  Cuts  printer  noise  drasti¬ 
cally.  Lets  you  concentrate  on  meetings  or 
phone  conversations  without  printer  noise 
bothering  you  or  others.  Can  be  tilted  for 
better  viewing  of  printouts  and  use  as  copy 
stand.  Includes  paper  storage  rack.  $129. 

Verba  Gloria 
Menomonie,  WI 

Universal  Printer  Stand.  (With  a  paper  tray.) 


DISKETTES 

3M  Scotch'  BRAND 


The  Printer  Stand  is  a  full  17"  wide  and  15" 
deep.  Made  of  strong  1/4"  acrylic  so  that  it 
can  handle  almost  any  size  or  weight  printer. 
The  paper  feeds  easily  from  underneath  and 
is  deposited  neatly  in  the  paper  tray,  avoiding 
the  problem  of  twisted  or  tom  paper.  $37.95. 
Data  Stand.  A  strong,  lightweight  solution  to 
the  problem  of  where  to  put  that  program 
listing  while  you're  typing  it  into  your  com¬ 
puter  Single  sheets  or  large  magazines  are 
held  at  a  comfortable  reading  angle.  $20.95. 

Verbatim  Corp. 

Sunnyvale,  CA 

Data  Life  Head  Cleaning  Disk.  Will  remove 
most  debris  from  a  disk  drive  within  sixty 
seconds.  The  disks  are  presaturated  and  re¬ 
quire  insertion  into  a  special  jacket  before 
putting  them  into  the  disk  drive.  Kit  includes 
two  disposable  cleaning  disks,  one  jacket, 
and  instructions.  8-in  kit,  $8.50.  5  1/4-in 
disk,  $7.75. 

Data  Life  Holiday  Pack.  Includes  ten  Data 
Life  5  1/4-in  minidisks  in  a  plastic  storage 
case,  and  a  free  head-cleaning  kit*  The  Data 
Life  disks  are  certified  100  percent  error  free 
and  have  a  five-year  warranty.  Single-sided, 
double-density  disks,  $35. 

Vertex  Systems 
Los  Angeles,  CA 

Keyfixer.  Precision- molded  plastic  collars  fit 
onto  existing  enter,  tab,  backspace,  and  both 
shift  keys,  making  them  larger  and  easier  to 
strike.  Does  not  change  key  height  and  al¬ 


lows  original  keytop  to  show.  $14.95  for  set 
of  five. 

WattsOut,  Inc. 

Denver,  CO 

IVaffsOut.  An  antistatic  device  for  use  with 
computers.  When  users  place  WattsOut  near 
the  equipment,  attach  it  to  a  proper  ground, 
and  touch  it  before  engaging  the  keyboard, 
static  electricity,  which  can  cause  incorrect 
data  entry,  circuit  damage,  and  memory  loss, 
is  drawn  away.  $9.95. 

Williams  &  Foltz  Computer 

Furniture 

Berkeley,  CA 

P.C.6.  Solid  oak  six-foot  workstation  com¬ 
bined  with  four  accessories.  The  "bread¬ 
board"  allows  the  keyboard  to  be  positioned 
at  comfortable  typing  height.  The  CPU 
hanger  holds  the  XT  or  pc  and  frees  valuable 
desktop  work  space.  Storage  is  provided  by 
the  lower  shelf  and  the  drawer.  Cord-winder 
pegs  eliminate  the  tangle  of  cables.  $990. 

The  Wood  Works 
Lawrence,  KS 

Microcomputer  Furniture ,  The  Wood  Works 
manufactures  and  markets  efficient, 
ergonomically  designed  workstations  of 
hardwoods  and  hardwood  veneers  (available 
in  oak,  walnut,  or  cherry-stained  or  natural 
finishes).  Includes  worktables,  printer  ta¬ 
bles,  shelf  units,  chairs,  drop-leaf  attach¬ 
ments,  and  drawers.  Basic  46"  worktable, 
$160  (oak). 


AT  SUPER  LOW  PRICES 
FOR  YOUR  IBM  COMPUTER 
Scotch  DISKETTES 
ARE  TESTED  AND  GUARANTEED 
ERROR  FREE 
CALL  TOLL  FREE  TODAY 
IBM  CLUB  MEMBERS  WELCOME 
WE  SHIP  WITHIN  24  HOURS 


MASTERCARD  •  VISA  •  C.O.D. 
WE  PAY  SHIPPING  CHARGES 


CALL  TOLL  FREE 

800-922-8193 

IN  CA  800-468-1068 


Taycd  Business  Forms 
Computer  Supplies 

P.O.  Box  60S 
Newbury  Park,  CA  91320 


Business 


Abacus  Data,  Inc. 

Jacksonville,  FL 

Informa  5.  The  perfect  home  or  personal  file 
management  system,  customized  applica¬ 
tions.  Provides  instant  storage,  retrieval,  cal¬ 
culation,  and  reporting  of  any  data.  Requires 
no  memorization.  No  English-type  language 
or  syntax  statements — completely  screen  on- 
ented.  Expandable  to  Informa  10 ,  15,  20,  or 
25.  $395, 

Informa  I0r  The  first  step  to  a  full  database 


management  system.  Provides  complete 
multifile  reporting  capabilities.  Create  cus¬ 
tomized  applications  and  professional  re¬ 
ports  in  minutes.  Lightning  fast.  Expandable 
to  Informa  25,  20,  or  25,  $595. 

Informa  25,  Provides  advanced  security  and 
reporting  capabilities.  Expandable  to  In¬ 
forma  20  or  25.  $795. 

Informa  20.  Full  multiuser  capabilities.  Easy 
to  leam  and  operate,  yet  has  sophisticated 
capabilities  available  for  micros,  $995. 


114 


SOftOlk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


YOUR  SPREADSHEETS 

CAN  LOOK  PERFECT 
AND  STILL  BE  WRONG. 


You  know  how  it  is. 

You  spend  hours  building  up  a 
spreadsheet.  Inserting  data.  Changing 
figures.  Adding  new  formulas 
suggested  by  others. 

When  you're  finished,  everything 
looks  perfect.  But  is  it? 

Are  those  totals  really  right? 

What  formulas  produced  that 
bottom  line? 

Is  it  out?  And  if  so,  by  bow  much? 

The  onJy  way  to  be  sure. 

If  you  use  VisiCalc®,  Lotus™  1-2-3* 
or  SuperCalc™  ,  you  need 
The  Spreadsheet  AUDITOR. 

Why?  Because  only  the  AUDITOR 
allows  you  to  quickly  and  simply 
print  out  every  formula  in  your 
spreadsheet. 

Formulas  are  displayed  in  a  two- 
dimensional  grid  that  matches  the 
layout  of  your  spreadsheet  exactly. 

Coordinates  are  printed.  Pages  are 
numbered. 

So  you  can  refer  to  any  section 
instantly  —  identify  changing 
patterns  —  and  spot  errors  or 
omissions,  without  having  to  move 
your  cursor  from  cell  to  cell. 

For  Lotus  users,  the  AUDITOR 
even  provides  a  complete  listing  of 
all  named  and  special  ranges. 

Quick,  simple,  sure. 

You  don't  have  to  waste  time  altering 
column  widths.  Or  worry  about 
dipping  important  formulas. 

The  AUDITOR  scales  columns 
automatically. 

It  gives  you  the  option  of  wrap¬ 
ping  long  formulas  into  manageable 
columns  that  are  easy  to  read. 


A  permanent  record* 

The  AUDITOR  allows  you  to 
document  any  spreadsheet,  and 
create  a  permanent  record. 

It  lets  you  examine  the  logic 
behind  spreadsheets  "handed  down” 
by  previous  users. 

And  generates  formats  that  can  be 
followed  by  other  users  later 

Other  company  benefits* 

In  companies  where  several  people 
are  using  spreadsheets,  a  series  of 
listings  can  grow  to  become  an 
application’s  library. 

The  AUDITOR  makes  sure 
everyone  knows  what  spreadsheets 
have  been  developed,  so  no-one 
wTastes  time  reinventing  the  wheel. 

The  perfect  teaching  tool 

The  AUDITOR  helps  new  users  to 
learn  spreadsheet  building  tech¬ 
niques  quickly  because  it  displays 
the  formulas  behind  the  numbers. 

Printouts  also  show  what  formulas 
to  type  into  any  given  grid  location. 

Put  the  Auditor  on  your  side. 

If  you’re  making  responsible  financial 
or  corporate  decisions  based  on 
spreadsheets,  you  can’t  afford  to  be 
without  the  AUDITOR  one  more  day 


A  small  price  to  pay 

Best  of  all  the  AUDITOR  costs 
just  $99. 

And  that’s  a  small  price  to  pay  for 
spreadsheets  you  know  are  right. 

For  more  information: 
contact  Consumers  Software  at 
(604)  688-4548 
(Dealer  enquiries  welcome,) 

To  order  your  copy. 

Enclose  cheque  or  money  order  for 
$99  and  mail  to: 

Consumers  Software  Inc. 

Dept.  B,  Ste.  106,  314  East  Holly  Street 

Bellingham,  Wa.  98225 

or,  call  8004)45-5501  toll-free. 

(Ws  accept  Visa  and  Master  Card,) 
Please  specify  whether  you  have  an 
IBM/PC  or  an  Apple  II  or  He. 

™  Signifies  manufacturers’  trademarks, 

® Signifies  manufacturers'  rejjisitTcd  trademark. 


TTJP 


FOR  SPREADSHEETS  YOU  CAN  COUNT  ON 


1BTHE 

WALL  STREET 
CONNECTION 

NF  Systems  gives  you  a  user  friendly  stock 
portfolio  management  program  that  serves  your 
personal  investment  needs,  accurately  and  effi¬ 
ciently.  Finally,  you've  got  a  financial  friend  on 
Wall  Street  that  allows  you  to  keep  multiple 
portfolios  for  you  and  yaur  family.  Use  computer 
power  to  track  your  investments.  New  features 
include  tracking  of  a  money  market  fund  as  well 
as  interest  and  dividends  on  stocks  and  bonds.  All 
reports  can  be  displayed  on  the  screen  and/or 
printed  on  your  printer,  $70.00 


FEATURES 

B  Enter  Security  Purchases/Sales 
Value  Portfolio 
131  List  Portfolio 
n  List  Portfolio  Transactions 
@  Create  Year-End  Tax  Information 

J 


N.F,  Systems  Software 
for  the 
IBM  PC 


THE  GOOD 
HOME  MANAGEMENT 


DECISION. 

r- - - - - “ - - - - - - - - “ - — 

Home  Management  I 

1  HOUSEHOLD  INVENTORY  26  categories  of  possessions.  Totals  by 
category  including  costs  and  current  value,  Display/Print,  Insurance 
companies  Jove  it! 

2  VITAL  RECORDS  keep  lists  of  social  security  numbers,  bank  accounts, 
wills,  credit  cards,  insurance,  etc,  A  must  for  everyone! 

3  PERSONAL  STATEMENT  keep  available  to  print  as  needed.  Covers  aif 
topics.  Works  for  any  bank. 

4  VCR  TAPE  INDEX  also  could  be  used  to  keep  track  of 
regular  cassettes,  or  books.  Unlimited  tape  numbers. 

Home  Management  II 

1  NAME  /  ADDRESS  /  PHONE  allows  you  to  print  labels  as  you  go;  can 
create  files  for  different  lists. 

2  MAILING  LABELS  print  1 2,  or  3  up 


RESUME  PREPARATION  keep  it  handy-keep  it  current. 
Keep  resumes  for  several  family  members 


$45.00 


Keeping  family  business  matters  under  control  is 
difficult ...  Write  this  check  Pay  that  bill 
Insurance  premiums  due ...  All  the  paperwork 
adds  up  to  a  headache. 
You  ned  ail  the  help  you 
can  get  to  stay  on  top  of 
it  all.  The  HOME 
MANAGEMENT  software  package  from  NF 
Systems  puts  an  end  to  guesswork,  paper 
shuffling  and  haphazard  accounting.  Buy  it 
today  and  put  the  power  of  the  RC,  to  work 
managing  your  family  business. 


Available  for  ail  models  of  the  IBM  PC. 

k  ^ 


MASTERCARD/VISA 
Add  $2.50  Postage  &  Handling 


CATALOG  AVAILABLE 

NF  Systems,  Ltd. 

RO.  BOX  76363,  ATLANTA,  GA  30358 


404-252-3302 -VOICE 
404-252-4146  -  DATA 


Business 


ABW  Corp. 

Ann  Arbor,  MI 

R-L-L  Relational  database  for  pc  and  XT. 
Contains  English-like  query,  relational  editor 
for  input,  and  program  interface  to  create  ap¬ 
plications  in  other  high-level  languages  to  ac¬ 
cess  the  database.  $495. 

AgDisk/HTS 
Lincoln,  NE 

Crop  Record  Keeping.  Crop  and  field  infor¬ 
mation  can  be  kept  on  an  unlimited  number 
of  topics.  Subject  areas  such  as  plowing,  disk¬ 
ing,  planting,  and  harvesting.  Plant  popula¬ 
tion,  row  spacing,  fertilizer  applications  and 
costs,  weather  information,  and  special  com¬ 
ment  section  for  your  own  input  are  pro¬ 
vided.  Graph  comparisons  can  be  generated 
also.  $700. 

Swine  Record  Keeping.  Record  information 
for  swine  producers.  Breed  types,  manage¬ 
ment  practices,  gestation  actions,  death 
causes,  culling  flags  vital  to  decision  making, 
and  production  targets.  Weekly  worksheets 
printed  for  open  and  available  swine.  Data 
entry  can  be  made  by  group  or  individual  an¬ 
imal.  Breeding  inventory,  sow  productivity, 
sow  history,  pig  death,  bore  conception  rate, 
production  target  reports  can  be  generated. 
$700. 

VisiCalc  Templates.  Work  with  the  popular 
VisiCalc  program.  Business  management, 
cow-calf  herd  management,  crop  manage¬ 
ment,  feed  lot  cattle  management,  machinery 
management,  swine  farrowing  management, 
and  swine  finishing  management.  $95. 
Financial  Management.  Contains  five  pro¬ 
grams,  each  dealing  with  a  different  area  of 
money  management.  The  land  purchase 
analysis  program  lets  you  make  an  in-depth 
cash  flow  analysis  before  any  purchase  is 
made.  This  program  lets  you  calculate  cash 
flow  per  acre,  ratio  of  borrowed  money  ver¬ 
sus  market  value,  loan  balance,  and  many 
other  parameters.  Also  on  the  disk  are  depre¬ 
ciation  schedules,  farm  profit  analysis,  loan 
cost  calculator,  and  interest  income  calcula¬ 
tor.  $170. 

Machinery  Management.  Contains  four  pro¬ 
grams.  Operation  cost  estimation  helps  you 
calculate  total  fixed  and  variable  cost  of  any 
piece  of  machinery.  Also  programs  which  let 
you  determine  the  benefits  of  leasing  versus 
buying  machinery  and  ownership  versus  cus¬ 
tom  hiring.  $170. 

Aha!,  Inc. 

Santa  Cruz,  CA 

PMS-II  Project  Management  System.  For 
managing  any  complex  project — research 
and  development,  venture  management, 
construction,  business  planning.  Calculates 


the  critical  path;  sorts  on  responsibility, 
dates  and  times,  job  cost  code,  and  other 
user-defined  fields;  reports  all  or  selected 
events,  produces  bar  charts,  activity  on  arc 
diagram,  funding  schedule  graph,  and  other 
powerful  reports.  $1,295. 

RMS-II  Resource  Management  System. 
Links  with  PMS-II  for  allocating  resources  to 
events  scheduled  by  PMS-II.  You  can  define 
up  to  ninety-six  resources  such  as  personnel 
and  equipment.  Up  to  32,000  allocations 
across  all  or  selected  projects  automatically 
schedule  resources  within  activities  and  cal¬ 
culate  direct  and  burdened  costs  for  budget¬ 
ing  purposes.  Tabular  and  graphic  reports 
assist  you  to  do  capacity  planning  and  load 
leveling.  $995. 

Pertmaster.  Features  of  Pertmaster:  calcu¬ 
lates  very  fast;  on-screen  reports— bar  charts 
and  resource  histograms;  precedence  or  ac- 
tivity-on-arrow;  runs  under  DOS.  128K 
RAM— 1500  activities  and  29  resources;  64K 
RAM— 700  activities  and  29  resources.  $695. 

Alpha  Software  Corp. 

Burlington,  MA 

Data  Base  Manager  II.  Allows  the  user  to  in¬ 
tegrate  with  1-2-3,  VisiCalc ,  MultiPlan, 
WordStar,  and  many  other  word  processing 
systems.  In  addition  to  a  powerful  file  man¬ 
agement  system  it  offers  powerful  sort  capa¬ 
bility,  a  five-level  search,  easy-to-use  report 
formats,  mail  merge  features,  form  letters,  : 
field  calculations,  and  the  ability  to  recon¬ 
figure  and  merge  databases.  $295. 

The  Executive  Package.  Computes  for  the 
corporate  manager  with  VisiCalc ,  Multiplan , 
1-2-3.  Includes  more  than  forty  different  ap¬ 
plications,  documented  in  the  Harvard  case 
study  style.  These  applications  provide  real 
business  solutions  to  real-world  business 
problems  ranging  from  financial  analysis, 
budgeting,  forecasting,  corporate  growth, 
linear  programming,  to  decision  analysis. 
$145. 

Anderson-Bell 

Canon  City,  CO 

ABSTAT.  Makes  statistical  data  analysis  easy 
to  perform.  Flexible  data  manipulation  and  a 
broad  range  of  analytical  procedures  will 
help  you  describe  and  contrast  your  data  eas¬ 
ily.  $395. 

Anthro-Digital,  Inc. 

Pittsfield,  MA 

F.A.R.M.  Aids.  A  set  of  seven  VisiCalc  tem¬ 
plates  for  farmers.  Includes  cash  flow  sum¬ 
mary;  inventory  summary  and  net  worth; 
best  crop;  finishing  hogs  planner;  feeder  pig 
production  planner;  beef  feeder  planner;  and 
dairy  cow  production  planner.  $60. 
Versacalc.  An  enhancement  to  VisiCalc 
which  sorts  VisiCalc  screens,  automates 
processing  with  menu-selectable  modules 
(much  more  powerful  than  "keystroke  stor¬ 


age"),  and  includes  an  extensive  tutorial  on 
those  parts  of  VisiCalc  not  well  documented 
in  its  own  manual.  Easel  binder.  $150. 

Applied  Microsystems,  Inc. 

Roswell,  GA 

Protracs.  A  project  scheduling  and  action 
item  tracking  system.  Tasks  can  be  tracked 
by  priority  and  responsibility  and  can  be 
sorted  interactively  for  custom  reporting.  Re¬ 
ports  can  be  redirected  to  screen,  printer,  or 
disk.  Disk  reports  can  be  transmitted  via  mo¬ 
dem.  Includes  an  integral  color  Gantt  chart 
with  two-dimensional  scrolling.  $49.95. 

Applied  Software  Technology 
Los  Gatos,  CA 

Invoicing  Template.  Used  in  conjunction 
with  Versaform ,  provides  a  powerful  but 
easy-to-use  invoicing  application  package. 
Predefined  entry  screen,  including  data  entry 
checking  and  automatic  calculations,  format 
for  output  to  preprinted  invoice  forms,  and 
control  instructions  for  several  management 
reports  including  sales  analysis  and  accounts 
receivable,  and  a  start-up  set  of  forms. 
$49.95. 

Legal  Office  Manager.  Used  in  conjunction 
with  VersaForm  to  automate  recordkeeping, 
billing,  scheduling,  and  database  manage¬ 
ment  functions  of  a  small  to  medium-size 
law  practice.  Includes  a  system  for  month- 
end  close /billing,  bringing  balance  forward. 
Includes  all  of  VersaForm s  comprehensive 
error-checking  and  flexible  reporting.  $249. 
Purchase  Order  Template.  Used  in  conjunc¬ 
tion  with  Versaform.  Provides  a  powerful 
but  easy-to-use  purchasing  application  pack¬ 
age.  Includes  predesigned  entry  screen,  in¬ 
cluding  data  entry  checking  and  automatic 
calculations,  format  for  using  preprinted 
purchasing  forms,  several  sets  of  manage¬ 
ment  report  instructions,  and  a  start-up  set  of 
forms.  $49.95. 

Qbase  Personal  Database/ Reporting  Sys¬ 
tem.  Provides  greater  accuracy  by  allowing 
extensive  data  entry  checking  to  be  built  into 
entry  screen  design;  report  definition  has  rich 
selection  options  and  easy  formatting  of  any 
data  filed.  Report  instructions  savable,  with 
variable  title  or  selection  values  available. 
$189. 

Versaform  Business  Database.  Provides  free¬ 
form  screen  design  of  files  based  on  familiar 
business  forms,  with  headings  and  column 
areas;  includes  extensive  data  entry  checking 
and  automatic  filing  built  in  by  the  user.  Flex¬ 
ible  report  function  contains  powerful  data 
selection  options.  Easy  formatting  for  output 
to  preprinted  forms  in  batch  or  singly.  $389. 

Ask  Micro,  Inc. 

Folsom,  CA 

Accounting  Plus  PC.  A  fully  integrated, 
screen-oriented,  menu-driven  accounting 


softalk  for  the  IBM.  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


117 


Business 


system  consisting  of  eight  modules.  The 
modules  available  include  general  ledger,  ac¬ 
counts  receivable,  accounts  payable,  inven¬ 
tory,  sales  order,  purchase  order,  payroll, 
and  point  of  scale.  Requires  96K  of  RAM, 
any  hard  disk  setup  that  is  compatible  with 
the  pc  and  a  132-column  line  printer.  $495. 

Avant-Garde 
Eugene,  OR 

Ultra  Plot.  This  is  a  menu-driven,  flexible 
business  graphics  package.  The  user  can  de¬ 
sign  and  print  pie  charts,  scatter  charts,  bar 
charts,  stacked  bar  charts,  line  graphs,  hi- 
low  graphs,  and  a  special  U.S.  map  chart. 
$99. 

B.  A.  Nicholson  and  Co.,  Inc. 

New  York,  NY 

Municipal  Bond  Software.  Facilitates  the 
structuring  of  municipal  bonds.  Available 
packages  are  MuniDebt  ($4,800),  MuniSizer 
($1,000),  MuniRefund  ($2,300),  and  Muni- 
Bid  ($3,500). 

Basic  Business  Software,  Inc. 

Las  Vegas,  NV 

Statistics  5.1.  A  complete  statistical  analysis 
package.  Supports  over  twenty-four  pro¬ 
grams  for  the  statistical  analysis  of  data.  In¬ 
cludes  a  130-page  manual.  $90. 

Fixed  Asset  Depreciation  System.  A  com¬ 
plete  fixed-asset  depreciation  tracking  sys¬ 
tem.  Supports  SL,  SVD,  150  percent  DB,  and 
all  ACRS  methods.  $195. 

BDI  Business  Development 
International 

Pembina,  ND  and  Winnipeg,  MB 
FormWriter.  Combines  a  word  processor  for 
printing  the  daily  business  correspondence 
and  forms.  With  a  database  manager  for 
storage  and  retrieval  by  multiple  search  of 
your  information  records  and,  if  your  data¬ 
base  includes  names  and  addresses  of  cus¬ 
tomers  or  other  information  you  wish  to 
merge  anywhere  on  a  form  or  letter,  you  can 
batch  print  personalized  copies.  $275. 

Best  Programs 
Alexandria,  VA 

Personal  Computer/ Professional  Finance 
Program.  A  complete  financial  package  for 
business  or  home.  Maintains  up  to  twenty- 
six  checkbooks  and  other  assets  and  twenty- 
six  credit  cards  and  other  liabilities.  Provides 
continuously  updated  income,  expense,  and 
net  worth  statements.  Easy  to  use,  with  auto¬ 
matic  bill  paying  and  transaction  entry  each 
month.  Prints  checks.  $245. 

Personal  Computer/ Personal  Finance  Pro¬ 
gram.  Keeps  track  of  income,  expense,  and 
checkbook  transactions.  Provides  reports  on 


checkbook,  income,  expense,  and  cash  flow 
for  current  month,  prior  month,  year  to 
date.  Holds  up  to  400  transactions  per 
month.  Very  user  friendly.  $95. 

Personal  Computer/ Fixed  Asset  System . 
Efficient,  automated  way  to  manage  owned 
or  leased  property,  equipment,  or  fleet.  Han¬ 
dles  up  to  99,999  assets.  Can  utilize  all  tax 
depreciation  laws.  Handles  three  types  of  de¬ 
preciation  (IRS,  state,  and  internal  and  in¬ 
vestment  tax  credit).  Provides  a  wide  variety 
of  user-defined  reports.  Very  user  friendly. 
Written  in  IBM  assembly  for  fast  sort  and  Ba¬ 
sic.  With  250-page  manual.  $395. 

BIT  Software,  Inc. 

Milpitas,  CA 

The  Form  Manager.  An  integrated  software 
package  combining  data  management,  forms 
processing,  and  data  processing.  Allows  in¬ 
teractive  design  of  forms  on  the  screen,  pro¬ 
vides  math  and  print  capabilities.  User  can 
specify  any  print  format  and  math  formula. 
$195. 

BPI  Systems,  Inc. 

Austin,  TX 

BPI  Church  Management.  Provides 
churches  with  computerized  member  record 
keeping,  accounting,  text  editing.  Features 
member  access  by  name,  number,  or  group; 
budget  projections;  income  accounting. 
Prints  income  statements,  mailing  labels,  let¬ 
ters,  newsletters,  directories,  geographic  visi¬ 
tation  lists,  groupings  such  as  Sunday 
schools  and  choirs.  $795. 

BPI  Association  Management.  Provides 
member  record  keeping,  contribution/ex¬ 
pense  accounting,  text  editing  for  clubs  and 
organizations.  Maintains  project  budget 
spreadsheets.  Provides  member  access  by 
name  and  number.  Prints  letters,  newsletters, 
directories,  mailing  labels,  project  reports, 
and  income  statements.  $795. 

BPI  Information  Management.  Powerful, 
flexible  database  system.  Design,  build,  and 
edit  files  for  all  types  of  information.  Design 
and  employ  math  formulas  and  statistical 
analyses.  Display  or  print  unique  reports,  la¬ 
bels,  charts,  and  graphs.  $425. 

Robert  J.  Brady  Co. 

Bowie,  MD 

Business  Problem  Solving  with  the  IBM  PC. 
Includes  dozens  of  computer  programs  speci¬ 
fically  designed  for  use  by  business  people  in 
problem  solving  and  decision  making. 
Source  codes  are  included  in  Basic,  with 
many  also  in  Pascal.  Describes  select  com¬ 
mercial  software  and  offers  help  in  writing 
programs  and  in  revising  or  customizing  the 
programs  listed  in  the  text.  Book,  $19.95. 
Book/Disk,  $49.95.  Disk,  $35. 

Bristol  Information  Systems 
Fall  River,  MA 

Inventory  Management  System.  Provides 


the  user  with  a  flexible  and  easy-to-use 
method  for  inventory  control.  $800. 

Mailing  List  System.  Features  several  easy- 
to-use  list  maintenance  and  print  programs 
that  allow  data  entry,  modification,  restruc¬ 
turing,  and  selective  printing  of  various 
name  and  address  records.  The  Letter  Writer 
Program  provides  an  automated  yet  person¬ 
alized  letter  writing  system  with  the  Mailing 
List  System.  $200. 

Order  Entry  Billing  System.  Provides  a  mod¬ 
ular  set  of  fully  integrated  programs  for  order 
processing.  $800. 

Property  Management  System.  Gives  com¬ 
plete  control  over  all  aspects  of  the  account¬ 
ing  necessary  to  maintain  a  profitable  real 
estate  project.  $800. 

Balance  Forward  Accounts  Receivable  Sys¬ 
tem.  Allows  complete  control  over  the  ac¬ 
counting  and  supervision  of  accounts 
receivable,  billing,  inventory  control,  and 
sales  analysis.  $800. 

Construction  Accounting  System .  A  totally 
integrated  accounting  and  cost  control  sys¬ 
tem  designed  specifically  for  the  construction 
industry.  $2,400. 

Integrated  Accounting  System.  A  set  of 
mainframe  packages  recompiled  for  micro¬ 
computers.  Price  depends  on  number  of 
packages  purchased. 

Fixed  Asset  Management  System.  Designed 
to  maintain  information  necessary  to  reflect 
the  status  of  your  capitalized  assets  at  any 
given  time.  $800. 

BusinessMaster 
Carlsbad,  CA 

BusinessMaster  Plus.  A  fully  integrated, 
menu-controlled  general  business  accounting 
and  bookkeeping  software  package  includ¬ 
ing  general  ledger,  accounts  receivable  with 
order  entry,  accounts  payable  with  vouchers 
and  purchase  orders,  payroll,  inventory, 
fixed  asset  accounting,  and  mailing  list.  $495. 

BusiSoft  Corp. 

Loomis,  CA 

BusiSoft  Analyzer.  A  financial  analysis  pro¬ 
gram  using  ratio  analysis.  The  program  pro¬ 
vides  a  large  variety  of  ratios  derived  from 
information  entered  from  balance  sheets  and 
income  statements.  Data  may  be  entered  for 
one  to  five  financial  periods  and  the  industry 
averages.  A  glossary  of  financial  terms  and  a 
tutorial  on  ratio  interpretation.  $199.50. 

California  Software  Products,  Inc. 
Santa  Ana,  CA 

Baby/34.  A  revolutionary  software  system 
which,  for  the  first  time,  makes  available  to 
the  pc  user  the  vast  library  of  RPGII  systems 
and  applications  that  have  been  written  for 
the  IBM  System /34,  Complete  system  in¬ 
cludes  RPGII  compiler  and  workstation  in¬ 
put/output,  OCL,  SFGR,  DFU,  DEU,  SEU, 
and  Sort.  $2,500. 


118 


SOftClIk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


If  you're  like  most  people,  you  naturally 
assume  that  IBM  personal  computers  are 
so  advanced  they  practically  run  them¬ 
selves  Plug  it  tn  and  off  it  goes.  Solving 
problems,  making  work  easy,  counting  new 
profits  while  you  drift  off  with  headphones 
and  Vivaldi. 

Until  you  own  one.  And  a  fistful  of 
software,  Soon  it  becomes  a  battlefield  of 
tedious  typing,  conflicting  commands, 
picky  protocols 

Grasp  victory.  Get  ProKey.Tr' 

Pro  Key  is  a  unique  software  program 
that  actually  operates  your  favorite 
software  including  WordStar.  Visicalc, 

Lotus  1-2-3,  dBase  11  and  most  others 

With  Pro  Key  you  can  recall  frequently 
used  phrases,  headings,  names,  entire 
scripts  with  a  single  stroke,  Accurately 

ProKey  memorizes  mindlessly  compli¬ 
cated  command  sequences  and,  at 
the  touch  of  a  key,  executes  them  automa¬ 
tically  Instantly 

Standardize  a  plethora  of  protocols 
with  one  simple  personal  command. 
Painlessly, 

As  you  gain  experience  and  confi¬ 
dence,  ProKey  grows  with  you,  You'll  be 
able  to  customize  off-the-shelf  software  to 
your  own  personal  or  business  require¬ 
ments.  Ultimately  you'll  use  ProKey  as  a 
"super  command  center1'  operating  your 
word  processor,  spreadsheet,  database 
and  graphics  programs  together  to  create 
a  totally  unique,  incredibly  productive 
system, 

ProKey  is  available  at  most 
Computerland  stores  and  wherever  fine 
software  is  sold. 

Once  you  use  ProKey  you'll  wonder 
how  you  ever  faced  your  IBM  alone. 


RoseSoft,  Inc. 

4710  University  Way,  N.E, 

Suite  601, 

Seattle,  WA  98105 
(206}  524-2350 

To  run  ProKey.  you'll  need  an  IBM  Personal  Computer  or 
workalike,  DOS  (any  version,  including  2.0),  and  64Kof 
RAM  (WordStar  requires  9GK). 

WbrdSiar.  VisiCatc,  Lotos  1-2-3  and  dBase  II  are  irademarks. 
respectively,  oi  Mir.ro  Pro.  Vi&cor pr  Lotus  and  AshtonTate. 


A  Great  Software 


FriendlyWare  PC  Introductory  Set 

VOTED  THE  5TH  MOST  POPULAR  IBM  SOFTWARE  ON  THE 
MARKET  IN  SOFTALK  MAGAZINE'S  RECENT  READER 
SURVEY. 

MONEY  magazine  described  the  Intro  Set  as  one  of  the  two  best 
learner  programs  available  for  microcomputers. 

PC  magazine  said  it  "had  to  be  seen  to  be  appreciated". 

According  to  SOFTALK,  "the  implementation  and  sophistication  of 
the  Introductory  Set  are  superior  to  anything  available  in  the  public 
domain"* 

The  Intro  Set  is  a  must  for  novice  users,  but  its  a  lot  more  than  just 
a  starter  set*  Even  seasoned  pros  are  finding  things  they  like  among 
the  4  demo  programs,  17  games,  and  8  utilities  on  the  package. 

Some  are  even  saying  that  several  individual  programs  on  the  set 
(such  as  the  Personal  Check  Book  on  disk  #3)  are  worth  the  price  of 
the  package  all  by  themselves. 

SUGGESTED  RETAIL  $49*95 


FriendlyWare  PC  Arcade 

They  told  us  that  IBM'ers  wouldn't  buy  games?  but  our  customer 
feedback  told  us  otherwise. 

When  the  first  two  PC  ARCADE  production  runs  sold  out  before 
they  shipped,  we  knew  our  customers  were  right, 

PC  ARCADE  is  a  solid  lineup  of  10  fast-action  arcade  games  for  the 
IBM  PC. 

ASCII  MAN,  EAGLE  LANDER,  STAR  FIGHTER  TXT 6, 
SHOOTER,  BRICK  BREAKER,  GORILLA  GORILLA,  ROBOT 
WAR,  BUG  BLASTER,  HOPPER  and  PC  DERBY. 

All  10  were  written  in  Assembly  language  for  speed  and  Text  Mode 
for  use  on  monochrome  OR  color  monitor* 

All  games  feature  a  PAUSE  BUTTON  and  BOSS  IS  COMING  KEY, 
and  all  but  one  of  the  games  (EAGLE  LANDER)  can  be  controlled 
with  EITHER  a  joystick  or  the  keyboard. 

And  best  of  all,  you  can  play  them  forever  on  five  rolls  of  quarters. 
SUGGESTED  RETAIL  $49,95 


Friendly  Writer  (with  Friendly  Speller) 

Combine  the  best  little  letter  writer  you've  ever  learned  to  use  in  10  minutes,  with  a  fast  and  accurate  spell 
checker  that  compares  your  letter  with  a  30,000+  word  dictionary,  and  you've  got  one  of  the  greatest  things 
to  happen  to  word  processing  since  the  INSERT  and  DELETE  keys. 

Friendly  Writer  is  designed  specifically  for  the  kind  of  word  processing  you  need  the  most  —  the  1  to  6  page 
business  or  personal  letter.  And  using  Friendly  Writer  is  as  easy  as  striking  a  key. 

Friendly  Writer  (with  FriendlySpeller),  the  only  word  processor  in  the  world  with  a  30,000+  word  dictionary 
that  sells  for  under  $100, 

SUGGESTED  RETAIL  UNDER  $70,00. 


Great  Prices 


C|  GfeaTSupport 


The  days  of  the  $495.00  "Watzitdol"  software  package  are  over. 

The  same  is  true  for  $39.95  one  game  packages. 

Software  pricing  is  coming  down  out  of  the  clouds,  and  today's  soft¬ 
ware  consumers  are  proving  once  again  that  the  old  American 
business  ethic  of  "producing  a  quality  product  at  a  fair  price"  still  has 
merit. 

At  Friendly  Soft,  our  objective  has  always  been  to  give  you  the  pro¬ 
ducts  you  want,  in  a  format  that  you  can  use  and  appreciate,  at  a 
price  you  can  live  with. 

So  far,  your  response  is  telling  us  that  were  on  the  right  track. 


No  other  software  company  in  the  world  backs  their  products  as 
completely  and  as  simply  as  we  do* 

The  FRIENDLYWARE  "NO  FINE  PRINT  LIFETIME  GUARANTEE 

states; 

Tf  your  master  diskette  fails  due  to  normal  use,  we  will  replace  it, 
AT  NO  COST,  within  48  hours  of  receipt  of  your  original  master. 

If  your  master  diskette  fails  due  to  abnormal  use  (staple  in  media, 
food  on  hub  ring)  we  will  replace  the  programming  onto  your 
diskette  within  48  hours  of  receipt  of  your  original  master  and  a 
blank,  unformatted,  diskette. 

We  also  offer  a  unique  24  hour  hotline,  where  you  get  quick  answers, 
instead  of  taped  messages. 

In  short.  Friendly  Soft  is  the  unchallenged  leader  in  software  product 
support*  And  we  intend  to  stay  there. 


There  ore  three  good 
reasons  why  we're  colled 
"one  of  the  fastest  growing 
software  companies  in  the 
business'' 


5 

P 

*• 

3 


*** 


"SSSS*"' 


ft-  r^irmi  r*#* 

p4  I  !•*  VJt»+r* 

trwm  r*IL\M  VSciTt  ISC 


rHOm.Y  r. 

<*  n*.  r*»LK 

"-rSSSto,,, 


FkiendlySoft,  INC. 

ARLINGTON,  TEXAS 

Producers  of  innovative,  quality  software  products 
EXCLUSIVELY  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer 


All  Friendly  Soft  products  are  available  through  an  international  network  of  dealers  including  COMPUTERLAND  STORES,  IBM  PRODUCT  CENTERS, 
COMPU’S HOPS,  ENTRE  COMPUTER  CENTERS  and  a  growing  list  of  independent  software  dealers. 


Business 


Carnegie  Software 
Redondo  Beach,  CA 
Optalk.  A  program  for  analyzing  optical  sys¬ 
tems  by  ray  tracing.  Will  trace  to  conic  sur¬ 
faces  with  optional  tenth-order  axially 
symmetric  and  anamorphic  deformations.  A 
paraxial  ray  trace  is  also  included.  Lenses  and 
fans  can  be  saved  on  disk.  $59. 

Chang  Laboratories,  Inc. 

San  Jose,  CA 

MicroPlan.  A  financial  planning  tool  with 
built-in  formulas  for  loan  amortizations,  de¬ 
preciations,  internal  rates  of  return,  tax 
scheduling  plus  advanced  statistical  capabili¬ 
ties  and  self-programming  features.  $495. 
Link  Module.  Add-on  to  MicroPlan  for 
working  with  mainframe  data,  accounting, 
and  data  management  information.  Features 
include  cross-tabulation  and  posting.  $295. 
MicroPlan  for  automatic  consolidation  of 
different  reports,  variance  analysis,  and  con¬ 
trol  reporting.  $295. 

FilePlan.  A  data  entry  and  management  sys¬ 
tem  designed  like  an  electronic  spreadsheet 
for  easy  data  entry  and  data  retrieval.  Oper¬ 
ating  system:  CP/M,  CP/M-86,  MP/M, 
MP/M-86,  MS-DOS,  PC-DOS.  $295. 

Charter  Software 
Monticello,  IL 

FirstBase.  Database  can  be  learned  in  min¬ 
utes.  You  have  complete  control  of  the  screen 
layout  of  your  records  and  of  the  heading, 
type,  and  length  of  each  line  of  information. 
$39.95. 

ColorCorp 
Bloomfield  Hills,  MI 
ColorBIZ  Inventory.  Suitable  for  anyone 
who  has  inventory  to  manage.  Easily  up¬ 
grades  to  hard  disk.  Full-color  user  guide  for 
quick  reference.  Create  worksheets  for  setup, 
analysis,  and  valuation;  provides  usage  and 
margin  analysis  by  month  and  year  to  date. 
Transactions  include  sales,  returns,  orders, 
receipts,  cancel  orders,  scrap,  loss  and  physi¬ 
cal  count.  $498. 

Compu-Law,  Inc. 

Culver  City,  CA 

The  Client  Management  System  3.0.  A  com¬ 
prehensive  time  management  and  billing  sys¬ 
tem  for  small-  to  medium-sized  law  firms. 
Written  in  UCSD  Pascal,  the  system  runs  on 
both  floppy  and  hard  disks.  The  program 
produces  statements,  prebills,  and  many  re¬ 
ports  including  aged  accounts  receivable  and 
aged  unbilled  time.  $2,495. 

Compumax 
Menlo  Park,  CA 

Order  Entry.  Handles  documentation  and 


control  of  both  purchase  orders  and  sales  or¬ 
ders.  It  generates  and  prints  orders  and  state¬ 
ments  in  mailable  format.  Manages  changes 
in  description,  price,  and  quantity  when  or¬ 
ders  are  shipped  or  delivered.  Computes  tax 
and  monitors  back  orders.  $140. 

Microledger.  Performs  the  essential  duties  of 
double-entry  bookkeeping.  The  programs 
will  interact  with  other  Compumax  account¬ 
ing  programs  using  two  files.  $140. 

Micropay.  Handles  the  necessary  operations 
of  accounts  payable  required  by  most  small 
businesses.  Two  files  are  used  to  monitor  ac¬ 
tivity  during  a  user-defined  period  and  to 
keep  a  permanent  record  of  all  due  and  paid 
accounts  payable,  $140. 

Microrec.  Manages  and  documents  the  ac¬ 
counts  receivable  functions  of  a  business  ac¬ 
counting  system.  Using  a  transaction  file, 
user  monitors  transactions  and  then  accumu¬ 
lates  them  into  a  master  file.  Both  the  trans¬ 
action  file  and  the  master  file  are  easily 
updated  at  any  time.  $140. 

Microinv .  A  series  of  programs  that  carry 
out  the  inventory  control  functions  of  a  small 
business.  The  master  file  maintains  detailed 
information  on  inventory  stock,  while  the 
transaction  file  monitors  data  on  items  re¬ 
ceived  into  inventory  or  issued  to  job  loca¬ 
tions.  $140. 

Micropers.  Contains  two  systems  for  the 
price  of  one:  a  complete  payroll  system  and  a 
personnel  management  system.  The  payroll 
system  handles  both  hourly  employees  paid 
on  a  weekly  basis  and  salaried  employees 
paid  biweekly.  $140. 

CompuServe 
Columbus,  OH 

CompuServe  Executive  Information  Service. 
A  versatile,  easy-to-use  interactive  video 
service  for  the  executive,  with  software  speci¬ 
fically  designed  for  the  pc.  $139.95. 

Computer  Creations 
Palo  Alto,  CA 

The  Ultimate.  A  five-in-one  program  com¬ 
bining  word  processor,  database  manager, 
mail  merger,  dictionary,  and  electronic 
mailer.  Available  for  MS-DOS  and  Z-80  CP/ 
M  operating  systems.  $385. 

Compu  Trac 

New  Orleans,  LA 

Compu  Trac.  A  consolidated  program  that 
allows  the  stock  or  commodities  trader  to 
generate  studies  in  technical  analysis  and  as¬ 
sociated  bar  graphs  to  anticipate  market 
trends.  Maintains  a  strong  support  system  to 
help  with  any  problems.  Members  receive 
frequent  progress  updates.  $1,100. 

Computer  Furniture  Corporation 
Chapel  Hill,  NC 

PDMSf  the  Pascal  Data  Management  Sys¬ 
tem.  A  user-oriented  data  system  that  allows 


you  to  design  and  manipulate  your  own  ta¬ 
bles  of  data  with  storage  of  data  retrieval,  re¬ 
port,  mailing  labels,  sort,  statistical  analysis, 
global  replacements,  and  dozens  of  other 
miscellaneous  functions.  $199. 

Computer  Software  Design,  Inc. 
Anaheim,  CA 

Data  Ace.  Allows  users  of  any  level  to  create 
powerful  applications  easily.  It  contains  a  full 
relational  database  management  system, 
easy  commands  to  selectively  add,  list,  and 
modify  data,  and  a  data  definition  of  lan¬ 
guage.  Simple  programming  language  allows 
access  to  twelve  files  concurrently.  Catalog 
and  full  screen  editor.  Communications  facil¬ 
ities.  $595. 

The  Computer  Workshop,  Inc. 
Houghton,  MI 

TCW/DMS  120.  A  system  of  easy-to-use, 
menu-driven  programs  with  120  fields  per 
record.  Adds,  locates,  updates,  sorts,  re¬ 
ports,  plots,  queries,  and  reorganizes  infor¬ 
mation.  Also  includes  free  format  report 
writer  and  file  merge.  Some  knowledge  of 
computer  and  file  structure  is  helpful.  $600. 
The  Fantastic  Filer.  An  inexpensive,  easy-to- 
use  file  management  system  for  the  beginning 
user.  Capable  of  managing  mailing  lists, 
small  accounting  applications,  and  applica¬ 
tions  of  your  own  design.  Adds,  locates,  up¬ 
dates,  sorts,  shifts,  and  prints  information. 
Help  screens  throughout.  Maximum  of 
twenty-four  fields  per  record.  $200. 

Concept  Group,  Inc. 

El  Paso,  TX 

Architects  Business  Manager.  A  complete 
financial  management  package  for  architec¬ 
tural  firms.  Fully  interactive  job  cost  system 
with  payroll,  general  ledger,  accounts  pay¬ 
ables,  and  receivables.  For  small-  and  me¬ 
dium-sized  firms  (250  employees,  134  active 
jobs).  Compatible  with  ALA  accounting  sys¬ 
tem.  $2,200  with  $150  annual  update  fee. 
Engineer's  Business  Manager.  A  complete 
financial  management  package  for  engineer¬ 
ing  firms.  Fully  interactive  job  cost  system 
with  payroll,  general  ledger,  accounts  pay¬ 
ables,  and  receivables.  For  small-  and  me¬ 
dium-sized  firms  (250  employees,  134  active 
jobs).  Compatible  with  ALA  accounting  sys¬ 
tem.  $2,200  with  $150  annual  update  fee. 

Conceptual  Instruments 

Philadelphia,  PA 

The  Desk  Organizer.  Provides  an  easy-to-use 
and  highly  integrated  set  of  tools  for  making 
and  storing  notes,  keeping  and  monitoring 
an  appointment  calendar,  placing  and  log¬ 
ging  phone  calls,  doing  sophisticated  calcula¬ 
tions,  and  performing  other  functions.  $250. 

Consumers  Software  Inc. 

Bellingham,  WA 

The  Spreadsheet  Auditor.  Lets  you  print  the 


122 


SOftQik  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


Introducing  a  graphics  system  to  meet  your 
every  need,  whether  it’s  creating  sophisticated 
presentations  that  integrate  screens  from 
your  favorite  programs  —  or  expressing  yourself 
with  freeform  drawings. 


EXECUTIVE 


PICTURE  SHOW 


What  Lotus™  1-2-3  has  done  for 
spreadsheets.  Executive  Picture 
Show™  is  doing  for  graphics. 

Ordinary  business  graphics  programs 
are  fine  as  far  as  they  go.  But  they  are 
hardly  the  stuff  of  interesting  business 
presentations. 

If  you  need  the  ability  to  integrate  and 
modify  screens  from  other  programs, 
such  as  Lotus  1-2-3,  dBASE  II*, 
CREATABASE,  and  WordStar™  —  or 
just  give  free  rein  to  your  artistic  side 
with  free-form  drawings  —  you've 
probably  been  frusta  ted  on  both  counts. 
Now  there's  a  business  graphics  system 
that  gives  you  these  capabilities,  plus  the 
usual  line,  bar,  3D  bar,  horizontal  bar, 
and  surface  and  pie  charts. 

It’s  the  Executive  Picture  Show  and  it's 
long  on  capabilities  where  other  pro¬ 
grams  fall  short. 

With  Executive  Picture  ShowT  you 
can  create: 

M  free-form  graphics 

■  business  graphics 

■  slide  show  presentations 

■  a  m  ma  te  d  p  rese  nta  tio  ns 


Presentations  to  keep 
viewers  on  the  edge 
of  their  seats. 

Not  only  does  Executive 
Picture  Show  accept 
screens  from  other  pro¬ 
grams,  it  lets  you  inte¬ 
grate  them  into  your  pre¬ 
sentation  where  and 
when  you  want  them.  Then 
you  can  add  the  sound,  mo¬ 
tion,  and  color  that  insures  a  cap* 
tive  audience.  Dropping  in  your  com¬ 
pany  logo  or  making  bar  graphs  take 
form  right  before  your  viewer's  eyes  is 
easy  as  pressing  a  few  keys. 

Executive  Picture  Show  allows  you  to 
use  both  your  IBM*  monochrome  and 
color  monitors  during  your  presentation. 
This  means  you  can  show  a  spreadsheet 
on  your  monochrome  monitor,  while  a 
graph  or  drawing  is  formed  on  your  color 
display. 

Interactive  presentations. 

The  Executive  Picture  Show  was  de¬ 
signed  with  you  and  the  audience  in 
mind.  Not  only  does  it  allow  you  to  de¬ 


sign  a  moving  presentation,  it  gives  your 
viewers  a  chance  to  respond  with  more 
than  enthusiastic  reviews.  They 
can  actually  Input  their  responses 
so  the  program  —  and  you  — 
can  act  on  their  input. 

Easy  to  use. 

We  had  the  business  executive 
in  mind  when  we  designed  this 
tool.  That's  why  Executive  Pic¬ 
ture  Show  cuts  through  all  the 
“computer- esc”  to  simplify  in¬ 
struction  and  prompts  you 
throughout  the  program.  We've 
reduced  many  steps  to  single  key  com¬ 
mands  and  included  a  handy  reference 
card  to  help  you  get  your  show  on 
the  road. 

Executive  Picture  Show  is  playing  at  a 
computer  store  near  you  for  just  $195.  If 
you  want  to  preview  this  program,  con¬ 
tact  PCsoft  ware  of  San  Diego  directly  for 
a  demonstration  disk  and  documentation 
priced  at  530. 

Requires:  Graphics  adapter  and  display 
128  K  RAM 

2  disk  drives  or  hard  disk 
IBM  PC  or  IBM  XT 


Louis  1-2-3 s  CREATA BASE,  and  WordStar  art 
trademarks  of  Louis,  PCsoft  ware  of  San  Diego,  and 
.Mfcmpro International  Corp.,  respectively,  dBASE 
II  and  IBM  are  registered  trademarks  of  Ashton¬ 
Tate  and  International  Business  Machines,  Inc, 


Dealer  inquiries  invited. 

VISA  and  Mastercard  accepted. 


Dealer  orders  contact: 
Micro  D 

Software  Distributors 
Vitek 


CCA) 

(Nan) 

(CA) 

(Nat.) 

(CA) 

(Nat.) 


800-432-3129 

800-854-6801 

800-252-4025 

800-421-0814 

800-237-7290 

800-237-3443 


Also  available  through  Computer! and  Corporate. 


PCsoftware 


PCsoftware  of  San  Diego 
Suite  416 

9120  Gramercy  Drive 
San  Diego,  CA  92123 
(619)  571-0981 


Business 


formulas  behind  your  spreadsheets  quickly 
and  easily.  Ideal  for  documentation  and 
training  as  well  as  error-finding.  Works  with 
VisiCalc,  SuperCalc,  and  1-2-3.  $99. 

Continental  Software 
Los  Angeles,  CA 

Property  Management.  An  accounting  pro¬ 
gram  for  owners  and  managers  of  residential, 
industrial,  and  commercial  properties  of  de¬ 
velopments  of  up  to  1,000  units.  This  pro¬ 
gram  calculates  and  displays  standard 
accounting  reports  for  the  overall  property 
along  with  tracking  individual  accounting 
records  of  each  tenant— such  as  date  of  pay¬ 
ment  of  last  rent/lease.  $495. 

Craf tsbnry  Software 
Washington,  D.C. 

Mail  Manager.  A  professional  mailing  list 
program  that  creates  MailMerge  files  for 
WordStar  and  other  popular  IBM  word  proc¬ 
essors  and  for  its  own,  built-in,  word  proces¬ 
sor.  Features  9,999-record  capacity,  instant 
search  over  any  combination  of  fields,  sort 
by  name,  zip  or  any  other  field,  labels  in  up 
to  four  columns,  and  user-defined  file  struc¬ 
ture.  $89.95. 

CYMA  Corp. 

Mesa,  AZ 

CYMA  Accounts  Payable.  A  cash  manage¬ 
ment  tool  that  optimizes  small-  or  medium¬ 
sized  business's  use  of  cash.  To  fit  the  needs  of 
different  businesses,  cash-basis  or  accrual  ac¬ 
counting  methods  may  be  used.  Any  changes 
to  data  in  the  system  that  affect  financial  po¬ 
sition  are  recorded  as  a  complete  entry  in  the 
audit  files.  $1,095. 

CYMA  Accounts  Receivable.  Provides 
small-  to  medium-sized  businesses  with  up-to- 
the-minute  accounts  ledgers  and  aging  detail 
on  receivables.  It's  easy  to  use,  functions 
transparently,  and  adheres  to  sound  account¬ 
ing  principles.  $1,095. 

CYMA  Client  Accounting.  System  is  based 
on  the  CYMA  General  Ledger.  It  performs 
job  costing,  budgeting,  and  graphing  of  ac¬ 
tivity  within  accounts.  It  goes  beyond  the 
General  Ledger  by  performing  (1)  after-the- 
fact  payroll,  (2)  loan  amortization,  and  (3) 
ratio  analysis.  $1,695. 

CYMA  Construction.  One  to  thirteen  budget 
periods  with  the  option  to  roll  each  total  into 
a  separate  budget  for  complete  tracking  of  in¬ 
come  and  expense  accounts;  complete  job 
costing  capabilities,  with  labor  distribution 
and  material  costs  posted  to  the  appropriate 
project,  job,  or  subphase  within  a  job;  auto¬ 
matic  generation  of  recurring  and/or  revers¬ 
ing  entries;  check  registers  show  broken 
check  sequence  and  voided  checks;  trial  bal¬ 


ance  and  funds  flow  worksheets  simplify 
daily  data  entry  work;  complete  audit  files 
automatically  record  changes  that  affect  the 
financial  position  of  the  company.  $2,795. 
CYMA  General  Ledger.  System  stores  gen¬ 
eral  journal  transactions  and  job  cost  entries 
with  complete  audit  trails.  The  software  pro¬ 
vides  up  to  twenty-six  different  user-defined 
financial  statement  formats,  and  produces  a 
comprehensive  range  of  financial  reports  for 
screen  display  or  printing.  $1,095. 

Data*Easy  Software,  Data 
Consulting  Group 
Foster  City,  CA 

Database  Management.  Database  is  the 
quickest  way  to  file,  sort,  display,  edit,  and 
print  data  and  labels  without  programming. 
Simply  fill  in  the  blanks  and  Data*Easy  helps 
you  with  the  rest.  Data  entry  is  limited  to 
fourteen  fields  and  up  to  255  characters  per 
record.  $195. 

Data  Entry  &  Edit.  This  utility  creates  cus¬ 
tom  screens  for  data  entry,  delete,  change, 
and  inquiry  functions.  You  simply  call  up  the 
screen /file  name  in  order  to  enter,  update,  or 
view  your  data.  $75. 

Inventory  Control  This  system  controls  all 
aspects  of  the  stock  status,  reorder  point,  or¬ 
ders,  receipts,  and  reconciling  of  items. 
While  not  FIFO  or  LIFO  accounting,  it  does 
track  inventory  value  based  on  the  latest 
cost,  list,  and  discount  prices.  $95. 

Mail  Lists  and  Labels.  Records  can  be  sorted 
by  any  field.  Label  or  directory  printing  can 
use  all  or  only  selected  records.  One-,  two- 
and  three-up  labels  are  supported  as  well  as 
oversize  packing  labels.  One  to  ninety-nine 
copies  of  any  label  may  be  printed.  "Search" 
allows  browsing  back  and  forth  through  the 
data  file.  $75. 

Mail  Order  Control.  This  system  is  used  for 
recording  low-  to  medium-volume  mail  or¬ 
der  sales.  It  keeps  track  of  sales,  tax  receipts, 
and  serial  numbers.  Discount  sales  and  three 
tax  rates  are  supported.  $95. 

Product  Invoicing.  This  system  allows  you  to 
create  invoices  quickly  for  materials  billing 
while  it  keeps  track  of  your  inventory.  The 
item  file  tracks  quantity  sold  as  well  as  the 
cost,  list,  and  discount  prices.  Reorder  point 
is  a  function  of  the  stock  status  report.  $195. 
Purchase  Order  Control  This  system  makes 
ordering  supplies  easy  and  controls  all  of  the 
details.  Descriptions  can  be  stored  or  entered 
on  a  one-time  basis.  On-order  quantity,  item 
reorder  point,  year-to-date  purchases,  and 
prime  vendor  are  features  of  the  inventory 
subsystem.  $195. 

Datamension  Corp. 

Northbrook,  IL 

The  Manager  Program  Collection.  Task 
Manager — daily  time  control,  job  expense 
journal.  Records  Manager— client  and  em¬ 
ployee  information  file.  Project  Manager — 


critical  path,  resource  planning  system.  $499. 
Report  Manager.  A  three-dimensional  appli¬ 
cation  generator  and  spreadsheet.  It  gives  se¬ 
rious  computer  users  the  power  of  a 
programmable,  multidimensional  system  for 
financial  planning,  forecasting,  and  statisti¬ 
cal  analysis.  $399. 

Datasmith,  Inc. 

Shawnee  Mission,  KS 
Data  Manager.  A  generalized  file  manage¬ 
ment  system  that  allows  the  user  to  define  file 
layouts  and  enter  and  update  data  at  will. 
Features  a  fast  assembly  language  sort  with 
up  to  ten  keys,  an  interactive  report  genera¬ 
tor,  and  various  utilities.  $350. 

Payroll  System.  Menu-driven  payroll  system 
features  four  pay  categories  plus  salaried  em¬ 
ployees.  Calculates  all  taxes  plus  user-defined 
deductions  and  allows  entry  of  "one-time" 
special  entries  every  payroll  period.  Prints 
payroll  report,  master  list,  paychecks,  W-2 
forms,  and  reports  to  assist  in  preparation  of 
941  forms,  FUTA  reports,  and  so  on.  $400. 
Bookkeeping  System.  A  simplified  fixed-for¬ 
mat  general  ledger  system  designed  for  users 
without  extensive  computer  or  accounting 
experience.  The  menu-driven  system  allows 
up  to  900  accounts  and  features  error-check¬ 
ing  data  entry,  chart  of  accounts  and  journal 
listings,  profit  and  loss  statement,  balance 
sheet,  complete  audit  trail,  and  a  check-writ¬ 
ing  feature.  $300. 

Data  Tec  Incorporated 
Manchester,  MO 

Easy-Med.  Specifically  designed  for  medical 
offices.  It  automates  billing,  has  a  word  proc¬ 
essor,  and  does  insurance.  It  is  designed  for 
the  XT.  $1,295. 

Easy -Den.  A  fully  integrated  easy-to-use  sys¬ 
tem  for  the  dental  office.  It  simplifies  billing, 
comes  with  a  word  processor,  does  insur¬ 
ance,  and  has  recall.  It  was  designed  by  a 
dentist  for  the  XT.  $1,295. 

Decision  Support  Software,  Inc. 
McLean,  VA 

Expert  Choice.  A  decision  support  system 
that  allows  one  to  make  comparisons  among 
alternatives  when  many  criteria  exist.  EC  al¬ 
lows  one  to  analyze  a  decision  problem  when 
subjection  criteria  and  "seat-of-the-pants" 
judgments  must  be  integrated  with  objective 
factors.  Graphically  portrayed.  It  is  one  step 
beyond  spreadsheeting.  $245. 

The  Business  Accountant.  A  general  ledger 
that  does  not  require  accounting  knowledge. 
Instantaneous  balance  sheet  as  well  as  profit 
and  loss.  Backdate  entries  with  automatic 
end  of  month  balance  adjustment.  Define  200 
accounts  and  sixty-three  codes  (to  subdivide 
accounts).  End  of  month  reporting.  Optimal 
interface  to  1-2-3,  VisiCalc ,  or  Multiplan. 
$295. 


124 


softcilk 


B  u  s 


1  N  E  S  $ 


Design  Trends,  Ltd* 

Wilton,  CT 

SafTax.  A  tax  preparation  and  simulation 
system  that  runs  on  the  pc  and  XT.  Data  en¬ 
try  is  simplified  by  using  VisiCalc  templates. 
Forms  are  printed  in  a  format  approved  by 
the  IRS  for  direct  submittal.  SafTax  is  availa¬ 
ble  in  three  versions:  1.  Individual  version 
contains  most  commonly  used  1040  forms.  2. 
Preparer's  version  contains  all  1040  forms  as 
well  as  features  such  as  batch  print  and 
organizer,  required  by  the  professional  pre¬ 
parer.  3.  Professional  version  adds 
corporate,  partnership,  and  trust  to  the  pre¬ 
parers  version,  $199,  $499,  and  $850, 


Diamond  Head  Software 

Honolulu,  HI 

Stock  Charting.  Produces  a  chart  of  a  stock's 
price  and  volume  activity  for  the  previous 
thirty  trading  days,  and  superimposes  a 
thirty-day  moving  average  curve.  It  reads 
and  writes  data  to  disk  for  up  to  twenty 
stocks.  DOS  1.1,  549.95.  DOS  2.0,  $69,95. 


Digital  Marketing  Corp* 

Walnut  Creek,  CA 

Milestone,  A  project  management  and  time 


scheduling  program  which  uses  a  "critical 
path  '  network  analysis  process  to  schedule 
manpower,  dollars,  and  time.  Can  also 
produce  a  PERT  chart  in  minutes.  $295. 
Notebook.  A  database  management  system 
designed  especially  for  storing  and  retrieving 
text.  Notebook  can  also  sort  and  select 
records  based  on  any  text  in  any  field  without 
predefined  keywords.  $150. 

PC/OFS .  A  simple  yet  powerful  database 
management  program  which  allows  creation 
of  a  custom  filing  system.  Does  not  require 
learning  a  technical  language.  $99. 

Plan  80.  A  financial  modeling  system  that's 
easy  to  use  and  powerful  enough  to  replace 
most  time-sharing  applications.  Calculation 
and  graphic  display  of  IRR,  depreciation, 
ATAN  and  trigonometric  functions  are 
effortless.  5295. 

Cardfile.  Stores,  retrieves,  and  displays  in¬ 
formation  that  typically  is  kept  in  index  card 
files.  Each  fife  record  can  contain  up  to 
twenty-one  lines  with  the  first  three  treated  as 
descriptors.  $89. 


dilithium  Press 
Beaverton,  OR 

How  to  Use  SuperCatc.  SuperCalc  is  the 
bestselling  program  that  prepares  financial 
spreadsheets  and  forecasts.  It  runs  on  most 
CP/M-based  systems  and  the  IBM  with  MS- 
DOS.  This  book  is  an  easy  way  to  learn,  in 


simple  terms  with  down-to-earth  directions, 
how  to  effectively  use  the  spreadsheet  for¬ 
mat.  Not  only  does  the  book  explain  what 
SuperCalc  does,  it  tells  how  to  organize,  ar¬ 
range  and  manipulate  the  data.  It  is  also  a  ref¬ 
erence  manual  that  lists  all  of  the  program's 
functions  and  a  definition  and  discussion  of 
each  one.  $34,95. 

TeloFacts  J.  Complete  software  package  that 
shows  you  how  to  design  and  automate  cus¬ 
tom  questionnaires,  tests,  polls  or  applica¬ 
tions,  It  provides  you  with  the  capability  to 
gather  opinions,  resume  information,  mar¬ 
keting  data,  survey  data,  or  any  other  ques¬ 
tion/answer  information  quickly  and  easily. 
TeloFacts  then  analyzes  and  displays  these  re¬ 
sponses  in  a  variety  of  understandable  meth¬ 
ods,  $49.95, 

TeloFacts  II.  Shows  you  how  to  design  and 
automate  custom  questionnaires,  tests,  polls 
or  applications.  Provides  the  capability  to 
gather  opinions,  resume  information,  mar¬ 
keting  data,  survey  data,  or  any  other  ques¬ 
tion/answer  information  quickly  and  easily. 
Enhanced  version  of  TeloFacts  1  that  can  be 
used  with  a  card  reader  and  ranks,  lists,  and 
scores  respondents.  $199.95. 

Microhook:  Database  Management  for  the 
IBM  Personal  Computer.  At  last,  here  is  an 
affordable  way  to  have  a  database  manage¬ 
ment  system.  These  programs  can  be  used  for 
any  application  involving  the  storage  and  re- 


met 


Never  Write  Your  Stamp  Inventory  List  Again! 


BOMPUTERIZE  Yl  tfR 
STAMP  COLLECTION 
WITH  ONE  STEP? 


BEN  FRANKS 


FRANKLIN®  you  can: 

p  Add  stamps  to  your  collection 

■  Make  corrections  In  stomps  in  your  collection 

■  Each  entry  includes  Scott  No,n  Quantity, 

Stamp  Condition,  Price  paid  and  date  purchased 

Vm  ready  So  computerize  with  One  Step! 


Delete  stamps  Irom  your  collection 

Frint  a  complete  listing  of  your  collection  wilh 

total  entries  and  your  collection  cosl  too!! 

JQGH  Satisfaction  Assured  wilh  a  No-Risk. 

10  Day  Money-Back  Guarantee. 


Now  with  the  new  BEN  FRANKLIN®  Stamp  Collectors  Series 
Program*  you  can  keep  your  collection  in  Scott  Number  order 
and  use  one  main  menu  step  you  through  the  system*  With  BEN 


Inventory  Software  for  United  States 
Postage,  Air  Mails,  Postage  Due, 
Special  Delivery  Singles 


"System  Requirements;: 

64K,  1  drive, 
printer,  display. 

Available  tor; 

LI  IBM -PC  OH  XT 
L  APPLE  11  + 

J  APPLE  II  D  APPLE  HE 


Send  me  # 


_BEN  FRANKLIN*  Stamp 


Collection  Software  Program^}  al  S49.95  per 


Ibdftww.  ISC 


THE 

"FRIENDLY  SOFTWARE" 
COMPANY 


, 


BEN  FRANKLIN'  is  a 
trademark  af  l  STEP 
SOFTWARE,  INC.  IBM  is 
i he  registered  trademark  of 
L  Hern  a  non  at  Busing 
Machine*  Corp. 


Name  . 


Address 


OHAI+.QTTE  PL. aza. 
5UTf  1-300 

nc  sss^a 


City,  State,  Zip 


(N.C.  residents  add  494  sales  tax) 
Tola!  amouni  enclosed  S  _ 


or  charge  my  C  VfSA 
ED  MasterCard 


Card  No. 


Signature 


Exp,  Date 


&  l  STEP  SOFTWARE,  INC.  AJ1  Ri&his  RnervttJ 


for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


125 


Business 


trieval  of  information.  Written  in  Pascal,  the 
programs  store,  retrieve,  and  process  data. 
Information  is  maintained  and  broken  down 
into  files.  These  can  be  accessed  with  key¬ 
words  so  the  only  thing  necessary  on  your 
part  is  a  rational  approach  to  entering  data. 
Photographs  of  the  screen  are  abundant  and 
show  step-by-step  the  effect  of  each  entry. 
$39.95. 

direct. aid,  Inc. 

Boulder,  CO 

LawSearch.  An  intelligent  terminal  program 
for  communicating  with  the  Westlaw  legal 
database.  It  was  designed  specifically  for  the 
pc  and  XT  and  has  been  fully  tested  and  cer¬ 
tified  by  West  Publishing.  LawSearch  enables 
the  user  to  download  files  to  disk  and  to  ma¬ 
nipulate  those  files  on  most  word  processors. 
$350. 

Distributed  Planning  Systems  Corp. 
Woodland  Hills,  CA 
Bankreporter  1.  A  complete  budgeting,  plan¬ 
ning,  and  reporting  system  for  banks,  sav¬ 
ings  and  loans,  and  other  financial 
institutions.  It  is  installed  in  more  than  100 
commercial  banks.  It  includes  the  capability 
to  download  from  an  IBM  mainframe. 
$3,750  to  $6,250. 

Exposure  I.  System  to  allow  commercial 
banks  to  report  to  the  FDIC  and  comptroller 
of  the  currency  on  loans  to  foreign  countries. 
This  is  a  required  report  for  all  banks  with 
loans  in  excess  of  $20  million  outstanding  to 
foreign  countries.  $2,495. 

Gapmanager-I.  A  comprehensive  asset/ lia¬ 
bility  system  for  commercial  banks.  Com¬ 
plete  user  definition  of  accounts.  Interface  to 
host  computer.  Installed  in  more  than  100 
commercial  banks.  $3,750  to  $6,250. 

Distributed  Software  Systems,  Inc. 
Northbrook,  IL 

PC-Order  Entry  System.  Provides  for  the 
taking  of  an  order,  storing  the  information, 
printing  the  invoice,  and  producing  several 
sales  analysis  reports.  The  system  features: 
automatic  look-up  of  customer,  item  descrip¬ 
tion,  and  price,  as  well  as  automatic  calcula¬ 
tions  of  discounts  and  taxes.  On-line 
maintenance  available  for  immediate  updat¬ 
ing  of  prices  and  items.  $325. 

PC-Order  Entry  Inventory.  A  perpetual  in¬ 
ventory  system  to  be  incorporated  into  the 
PC-Order  Entry  System.  The  system  main¬ 
tains  the  quantity  of  stock-on-hand  items 
and  notifies  the  operator  when  stock  has 
reached  a  zero  or  backorder  point.  $50. 

Dow  Jones  and  Co.,  Inc. 

Princeton,  NJ 

Dow  Jones  Market  Analyzer.  A  technical 


analysis  product  that  allows  for  automatic 
collection,  storage  and  updating  of  historical 
and  daily  stock  market  quotes  and  construc¬ 
tion  of  technical  analysis  charts.  Access  in¬ 
formation  from  Dow  Jones  News/Retrieval. 
$349. 

Dow  Jones  Market  Manager  A  portfolio 
management  product  that  allows  private  and 
professional  investors  to  access  pricing  and 
financial  information,  and  provides  an  ac¬ 
counting  and  control  system  for  portfolios  of 
securities.  Access  information  from  Dow 
Jones  News /Re trieval .  $299. 

Dow  Jones  Market  Microscope.  A  funda¬ 
mental  analysis  product  that  allows  users  to 
choose  and  follow  indicators  for  extensive 
lists  of  stocks  and  industry  groups,  and  to 
sort,  rank,  screen,  and  set  critical  points  for 
buying  and  selling.  Accesses  information 
from  Dow  Jones  News/ Retrieval.  $699. 

Dynacomp,  Inc. 

Rochester,  NY 

Microcomputer  Bond  Program.  Designed  to 
help  you  evaluate  bonds.  It  provides  a  quick 
and  easy  way  to  estimate  the  prices  and 
yields  of  fixed  income  securities  under  a 
broad  range  of  assumptions  and  estimates 
about  the  future.  $59.95. 

Microcomputer  Stock  Program.  Designed  to 
help  you  analyze  stock  prices.  It  provides 
timing  signals  for  stock  purchase  and  sales. 
Buy  and  sell  indicators  are  generated  by 
means  of  a  unique  auto-regressive  price  trend 
analysis.  MSP  requires  only  weekly  high, 
low,  and  close  prices  and  the  volume  of 
shares  to  aid  your  investment  decisions. 
$59.95. 

Tax  Optimizer.  A  software  system  designed 
to  evaluate  various  tax  alternatives  and  to  se¬ 
lect  the  most  advantageous  method  for  the 
preparation  of  an  individual  Federal  Income 
Tax.  Each  set  of  input  data  is  referred  to  as  a 
scenario.  A  tax  scenario  can  contain  up  to 
five  alternatives.  Individual  scenarios  may  be 
saved  on  disk  for  future  reference.  Stored 
scenarios  may  be  retrieved,  modified,  and  re¬ 
calculated  at  will.  If  a  printer  is  available, 
permanent  copies  of  the  tax  scenarios  can  be 
printed.  $59.95. 

el  Dorado  Software,  Inc. 

San  Francisco,  CA 

Bizi-Calc.  The  library  of  twenty  standard 
financial/accounting  forms  for  popular 
spreadsheet  programs.  Each  ready-to-use 
form  includes  on-screen  Worknotes  for  easy 
completion.  Both  disk  and  manual  include  a 
six-part  spreadsheet  tutorial.  Manual  fea¬ 
tures  a  comprehensive  applications  section 
for  using  each  form  for  forecasting  and  anal¬ 
ysis.  $60. 

50/50.  Forty  business  management  forms  for 
popular  spreadsheet  programs.  Each  ready- 
to-use  form  includes  on-screen  Worknotes 
for  easy  completion.  Manual  includes  a 


spreadsheet  tutorial.  Forms  range  from  an 
advertising  analysis  to  vehicle  maintenance 
costs  and  includes  breakeven,  depreciation, 
loan  amortization,  profit  point,  compound 
growth,  linear  regression,  and  investment 
analysis.  $60. 

In  the  Mail  Business  letter  generator  for  pop¬ 
ular  word  processing  programs  such  as  Easy- 
Writer  II  and  WordStar.  Ninety-nine  pro¬ 
fessional  letters  covering  standard  business 
correspondence  needs.  Twenty-two  different 
categories,  each  containing  up  to  five  varia¬ 
tions  on  the  theme.  Categories  include  ac¬ 
ceptance,  collections,  credit,  employment, 
follow-up,  personal,  and  sales.  Manual  fea¬ 
tures  word  processor  tutorial.  $60. 

Calc-Kit.  VisiCalc  enhancement  program  for 
data  management  and  presentation.  Printed 
report  designer  offers  variable  width  col¬ 
umns  and  cells  plus  multiple  typestyles.  Cell 
list  documents  your  spreadsheet  formulas. 
Interfile  data  mover  allows  information  in¬ 
terchange  between  multiple  VisiCalc  files, 
and  graphic  interpreter  offers  nine  graphic 
portrayals  of  data  stored  in  various  files. 
$100. 

Earth  Data  Corp. 

Richmond,  VA 

MicroCantt.  Friendly,  interactive  project¬ 
scheduling  software  yields  professional  qual¬ 
ity  critical  path  (CP/M)  network  for  any  size 
project.  Allows  multiple  task  dependencies, 
task  overlap,  variable  worker  dedication, 
and  fixed  costs.  Change  any  factor  and  the 
entire  projection  is  recalculated.  Change  time 
frame  to  view  project  at  different  levels  of  de¬ 
tail.  Loads  on  to  fixed  disks.  Integrates  with 
other  products.  $395.  Documentation  alone, 
$25.  Dealer  demo  and  documentation,  $45. 

Emerald  Software 

Seattle,  WA 

The  Small  Fortune  Auto-Ledger.  A  simple, 
powerful,  general  ledger  package  for  small 
businesses.  Supports  single-entry  or  self-bal¬ 
ancing  double-entry  transactions,  up  to  400 
general  ledger  accounts  and  eight  depart¬ 
ments.  The  audit  module  features  search  and 
display  capability  by  date,  account,  or  de¬ 
scription.  The  reports  module  can  even  gen¬ 
erate  accounts  receivable  and  accounts 
payable  reports,  invoices.  $250. 

Ensign  Software 
Boise,  ID 

Church  Membership.  This  full-featured  data¬ 
base  is  designed  to  maintain  any  church's 
membership  records  and  financial  pledges. 
You  can  add  families,  update,  retrieve,  and 
browse  through  records.  Print  membership 
list,  address  labels,  telephone  directory,  class 
rosters,  and  more.  80-column.  $99.95. 

Execuware 
Charlotte,  NC 

The  Real  Estate  Analysis  Package.  Meant  to 


SOftGlk  /or  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


ON-SCREEN  FORMATTING 


early  as  much 


SUPER-TEXT  PROFESSIONAL  FOR  IBM*  provides  the  most  power¬ 
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Super-Text  Professional  utilizes  all  of  the  IBM  function  keys.  If 
provides  automatic  page  headers  ond  footers,  automotic  poge 
and  chapter  numbering,  and  the  Preview  Mode  allows  you  to 
check  page  endings, 

Super-Text  provides  for  easy  text  editing.  Special  block  opera¬ 
tions  for  text  copy,  save  and  delete.  Automatic  tabbing  and 


formatting  plus  multi-file  search  and  replace.  User  definable 
characters  allow  you  to  moke  full  use  of  most  printer  functions, 
Including  multi-color  printing,  superscripttng  and  subscripting. 
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This  very  powerful  and  easy  to  use  word  processor  can  be  yours  for 
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w Super-Text  requires  IBM  DOS  Version  LI,,  minimum  64 K-  Also 
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Business 


aid  the  real  estate  investor,  his  tax  advisors, 
and  accountant,  as  well  as  real  estate  syndi¬ 
cators  and  developers,  in  making  sound  real 
estate  investment  decisions.  Multiple  loan  ca¬ 
pacity;  switched  or  interest-only  loans;  bal¬ 
loon  payments;  up  to  20-year  projections. 
$149.95. 

Know  Your  Client.  A  client  information  stor¬ 
age/retrieval  system  that  allows  user  to  recall 
previously  entered  information  quickly;  get  a 
listing  of  any  or  all  clients  according  to  name, 
position,  company,  business, city,  state  or  zip, 
common  factors,  last  contact  date,  or  follow¬ 
up  date;  print  labels;  and  much  more. 
$92.95. 

The  Financial  Analysis  Package.  Performs 
analysis  for  financial  executives  in  determin¬ 
ing  whether  to  lease  or  buy;  figuring  loan  and 
lease  payment  schedules;  analyzing  capital 
budgeting  alternatives,  and  determining  de¬ 
preciation  schedules  based  on  the  Economic 
Recovery  Tax  Act  of  1981.  $92.95. 

The  Economic  Order  Quantity.  Program  lets 
user  determine  the  economic  order  quantity 
and  order  point.  Features  a  sensitivity  analy¬ 
sis  to  determine  which  variables  cause  the  ec¬ 
onomic  order  quantity  and  order  point  to 
vary.  Includes  a  probability  theory  to  simu¬ 
late  variable  demand.  $92.95. 

Next  Step.  An  application  generator  for  the 
pc  and  XT  to  be  used  as  a  database  manager, 
report  writer,  and  program  generator.  Al¬ 
lows  user  to  create  an  input  program,  enter 
information  into  a  personalized  database, 
create  report  programs,  and  run  professional 
reports.  $345. 

Ferox  Microsystems 
Arlington,  VA 

Encore!  Comprehensive  corporate  planning, 
analysis,  reporting,  graphics,  and  modeling 
system  combining  spreadsheet  features  with 
an  English-based  financial  planning  language 
with  many  features  and  capabilities  built-in. 
An  upgrade  of  a  5,000-user  system.  $1,850. 

Financial  Software 
Chardon,  OH 

The  Maverick.  The  first  product  on  Wall 
Street  that  permits  you  to  evaluate  the  proba¬ 
bility  that  a  trend  will  continue.  Identifying  a 
favorable  trend  is  useless  if  a  stock  has  been 
discovered.  A  database,  monthly  newsletter, 
and  specific  recommendations  are  included. 
$395. 

Flexware 
Industry,  CA 

Inventory :  Can  interface  directly  to  the  Flex- 
ware  Purchasing,  General  Ledger,  and  Finan¬ 
cial  Reporting  systems. 

Order  Processing.  Improves  customer  satis¬ 
faction  and  reduces  order  handling  time  and 


costs.  Improves  order  accuracy,  credit  exten¬ 
sion,  order  status  reporting,  and  inventory 
management. 

Integrated  Accounting  Packages.  A  compre¬ 
hensive  general  accounting  system.  Includes 
general  ledger  and  financial  reporting,  ac¬ 
counts  receivable,  order  processing  inven¬ 
tory,  sales  analysis,  accounts  payable 
purchasing,  payroll,  and  job  costing. 
Accounts  Receivable.  Can  be  used  by  itself 
with  invoices  entered  manually  into  the  sys¬ 
tem,  or  can  be  used  with  the  Order  Process¬ 
ing  System  for  automatic  invoice  generation. 
Accounts  Payable.  Designed  to  increase 
profits  through  reduced  labor  involvement  in 
processing  payables,  better  cash  flow  fore¬ 
casting,  and  improved  vendor  discount  proc¬ 
essing. 

Payroll  System.  Provides  comprehensive 
processing,  recording,  and  analyzing  func¬ 
tions  for  managing  a  large  or  small  payroll. 
Many  functions  are  totally  automatic  but 
manual  overrides  are  always  available. 
General  Ledger.  Designed  so  that  detail  or 
summarized  information  flows  into  the  sys¬ 
tem  from  other  Flexware  applications;  how¬ 
ever,  you  still  have  flexibility  in  making 
manual  entries.  The  system  allows  you  to 
specify  your  own  account  number  structure, 
hence  you  may  use  your  existing  account 
numbers. 

Flexware.  A  mature  and  complete  applica¬ 
tion-development  system  that  provides  sim¬ 
ple  application  definition  using  a  data 
dictionary  and  database,  easy  application 
modification,  and  automatic  writing  of  end 
user  documentation. 

Frontier  Technologies 
Milwaukee,  WI 

Medpac.  Medical  office  system  package  pro¬ 
vides  medical  billing,  accounts  receivable, 
scheduling,  and  patient  records.  This  soft¬ 
ware  is  designed  using  a  general-purpose  re¬ 
lational  database.  $2,495. 

Payroll  Calculates  payroll  checks  and  keeps 
track  of  year-to-date  figures  for  a  small  busi¬ 
ness  of  100  or  fewer  employees.  Written  in 
Basic  so  it  can  be  modified  for  your  specific 
application.  Includes  routines  to  print  checks 
and  W2  forms.  $49. 

Bill  of  Materials.  Will  handle  a  company's 
parts,  procurement,  and  costing  problems. 
Starts  with  a  list  of  parts  for  any  given  assem¬ 
bly.  Then  it  can  add  assemblies  together  to 
make  a  purchase  order.  It  will  also  show  in¬ 
ventory  usage  and  shortage  lists.  The  pro¬ 
gram  is  written  in  Basic.  $99. 

GAI  Systems 
Florissant,  MO 

CHRIS — Complete  Human  Resource  Plan¬ 
ning  and  Information  System.  A  human  re¬ 
source  software  package  designed  for 
personnel  people.  Functions  include  general 
administration,  compensation,  attendance 


control,  EEO,  job  history,  training /develop¬ 
ment,  human  resource  planning,  career  plan¬ 
ning,  organization  planning  and  forecasting, 
and  modeling.  Chris  1.0,  $400.  Chris  2.0, 
$1200. 

Generic  Software 
Marquette,  MI 

Depreciation-Master.  Database  system  for 
assets  and  depreciation  schedules.  Includes 
all  IRS  Pub.  534  methods.  ACRS  schedules 
supplied  on  disk.  Allows  multiple  methods 
per  asset  to  handle  book  and  tax  accounting. 
Allows  multiple  methods  per  asset  to  handle 
book  and  tax  form  4562  output  plus  several 
other  reports.  $175. 

Great  Plains  Software 

Fargo,  ND 

Accounts  Payable.  Maintains  vendor  file  of 
up  to  32,766  vendors.  Will  automatically  cal¬ 
culate  and  take  advantage  of  early  payment 
discounts.  Prints  checks  or  will  handle  man¬ 
ual  checks.  Will  make  full  or  partial  pay¬ 
ments.  Hard  disk  only.  $495. 

Accounts  Receivable-Accounting.  Maintains 
customer  file  of  up  to  32,766  customers,  re¬ 
tains  detailed  history  of  each  customer.  Al¬ 
lows  partial  payments  and  will  assess  finance 
changes  at  straight  percent  or  dollar  amount. 
Hard  disk  only.  $495. 

General  Ledger.  Maintains  up  to  32,766  ac¬ 
counts  and  999  profit  centers  and  retains  the 
details  of  each  transaction  for  entire  fiscal 
year.  Hard  disk  only.  $495. 

Inventory  Control  with  Point  of  Sale.  Main¬ 
tains  a  parts  file  of  up  to  32,766  parts.  Main¬ 
tains  serial  numbers,  suggests  substitute 
items,  and  will  calculate  commissions  eight 
different  ways.  Hard  disk  only.  $595. 
Payroll.  User-defined  departments,  jobs,  lo¬ 
cal  taxes,  and  deductions.  Allows  for  multi¬ 
state  payroll  with  twenty  different  pay  types 
and  deductions  per  employee.  Hard  disk 
only.  $495. 

Harper  Business  Systems 
Bellevue,  WA 

PS.  An  address  book  management  system.  It 
prints  listings,  address  book  labels,  and  mail¬ 
ing  labels  (in  alphabetic  or  Zip  Code  sorted 
order).  An  alphabetic  index  allows  access  to 
any  record  in  three  seconds.  PS  sup  ports  10- 
digit  Zip  Codes.  Category,  follow-up  date, 
and  geographic  selection  are  supported. 
$33.75. 

Howard  Software  Services 
La  Jolla,  CA 

The  Tax  Preparer.  A  sophisticated  tax  pack¬ 
age  for  year-long  record-keeping  and  year- 
end  filing.  Prints  on  preprinted  1040  and 
generates  supporting  forms  in  IRS  facsimile. 
Easy  to  use  for  the  professional  tax  preparer 
and  individual.  $250. 

The  Real  Estate  Analyzer.  Performs  detailed 


SOftQlk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1 983 


12B 


Software  Labs  Is 
More  than  Software... 


IBM  is  d  r^btered  trademark  of  CBM  Corporation, 


Whether  you  use  your  IBM  PC  in  the  office,  for  programming,  or  at  home,  you 
will  profit  from  Software  Labs1  Professional,  Programming  and  Personal  Series. 

Our  Professional  Series  meets  the  needs  of  today's  business  people  with  an  in¬ 
tegrated  package  of  management  programs:  General  Ledger,  Accounts  Receivable, 
and  Accounts  Payable:  FileClerk™  (data  base  manager)  and  MailClerk™. 

The  Programmer  Series  puts  yop  in  total  control  of  your  IBM  PC  with  the 
S-BASIC™  programming  language,  MasterKey™  (for  making  backups  of  copy 
protected  disks),  and  the  Cross  Reference  Lister  for  BASIC. 

The  Personal  Series  features  Computer  Tutor™  which  has  30  BASIC  programs 
filled  with  knowledge,  entertainment  and  useful  information  for  everyday  living.  Our 
programs  are  great  our  prices  are  below  the  competition  s,  and  you  reap  the  pro¬ 
fit  from  your  wise  selection  of  our  products. 

Ask  for  our  software  series  at  your  local  computer  store,  or 

CALL  NOW  1-800-531-1309 

to  order  our  programs  or  receive  our  catalog.  In  Ohio  or  for 
technical  information  call  614/889-5083. 

Mail  orders  shipped  within  24  hours  via  UPS. 


Business 


objective  projections  of  after-tax  cash  flow, 
IRR,  RDI,  and  FMRR  on  commercial  and  res¬ 
idential  property.  Dissimilar  properties  can 
be  directly  compared.  Easy  to  use.  $250. 

Human  Systems  Dynamics 
Northridge,  CA 

PC  Statistician.  Offers  general  statistics  ques¬ 
tionnaire  analysis  and  a  research  database. 
Each  analysis  lets  you  choose  any  part  of 
your  data  file  for  analysis.  Features  include  a 
one-  and  five-way  cross  tabulation,  analysis 
of  variance,  regression,  and  nonparametrics. 
$300. 

IMSI 

San  Rafael,  CA 

Datasafe.  Secures  confidentiality  of  business 
and  personal  records  and  telecommunica¬ 
tions  with  a  simple  ASCII  key  password  or  a 
randomly  generated  hexadecimal  key.  Trans¬ 
fer  encrypted  data  between  any  micro,  mini, 
or  mainframe  that  uses  DES.  Warns  the  user 
that  a  change  has  been  made  to  protected 
data.  Encodes  multiple  files  with  record 
speed.  $135. 

Checkbase.  Easy-to-use  personal  accounting 
tool  that  efficiently  organizes  up  to  ninety 
checking  accounts,  simple  ledgers,  and  credit 
accounts.  Automatically  reconciles  bank 
statements  and  lists  checks  by  numerous 
methods.  Choose  up  to  sixty  tax/cost  catego¬ 
ries  to  speed  up  year-end  tax  preparation. 
Key  in  information  once  to  generate  checks 
and  complete  the  check  register.  $95. 
Investment  Manager.  Reports  and  measures 
investment  performance  of  individual  securi¬ 
ties,  security  groups,  and  entire  portfolio. 
Reports  include:  inventory,  transaction,  se¬ 
curity  performance,  portfolio  performance, 
and  tax.  Communicates  with  numerous 
financial  databases  as  well  as  interfacing  with 
Lotus  1-2-3,  Multiplan ,  and  VisiCalc.  Menu 
driven  for  both  the  professional  and  novice. 
Bisybase.  Schedule  your  time  and  organize 
all  essential  financial  and  communications  in¬ 
formation  for  personal  and  business  con¬ 
tacts.  Keep  up  to  date  with  comprehensive 
reports  of  your  financial  position  with  both 
U.S.  and  international  accounts.  This 
friendly  predefined  database  also  generates 
mailing  lists,  interfaces  with  most  popular 
word  processors,  and  is  compatible  with 
dBase  II.  $275. 

Info-Pros.,  Inc. 

Irvine,  CA 

Info-Gen.  Record  management  system  pro¬ 
viding  quick  and  easy  filing  and  retrieval  of 
information.  Assists  the  computer  in  defining 
a  complete  application  including  date  files, 
screens,  and  reports.  $245. 


Information  Access  Corp. 

Shalimar,  FL 

Pharmacy  Blue.  Retail  pharmacy  system 
maintains  customer  files  and  drug  inventory 
for  prescription  processing  and  billing.  Con¬ 
tains  a  multitude  of  reports,  including  insur¬ 
ance  analyses,  drugs  on  order,  alphabetical 
listings  of  customers,  drugs  and  doctors,  and 
receivables  analysis.  Supports  nursing  home 
activity.  Menu  driven  and  function-key  ori¬ 
ented.  Documentation  included.  $5,500. 
Amsched.  Comprehensive  mortgage  amorti¬ 
zation  program  that  prepares  amortization 
tables  from  input.  Provides  monthly  and 
yearly  breakdowns  of  principal  and  interest 
as  well  as  paid-to-date-figures.  Prints  out  on 
8  1/2"  x  11"  continuous-form  paper.  $30. 

Information  Solutions  Inc. 

Charlottesville,  VA 

Alert.  A  legal  calendar  and  docket  control 
system  that  manages  attorney  schedules  and 
critical  dates  or  events.  The  package  main¬ 
tains  schedules  for  all  attorneys  in  a  firm  and 
produces  a  daily  activity  calendar  for  each, 
as  well  as  a  firm  schedule  for  any  selected  pe¬ 
riod.  Critical  events  such  as  statutes  of  limi¬ 
tations,  court  dates,  hearings,  and  filing 
deadlines  are  easily  managed  by  the  system 
and  automatic  remainders  may  be  optionally 
printed  for  any  event.  Alert  greatly  reduces 
the  possibility  of  missed  filing  dates,  appoint¬ 
ments  or  court  appearances,  and  schedule 
conflicts,  and  additionally,  may  reduce  a 
firm's  malpractice  insurance  rates.  $500. 

The  Analyzer  A  powerful  tool  for  perform¬ 
ing  the  financial  calculation  related  to  many 
types  of  law.  The  package  includes  complex 
bond  calculations,  lump  sum  interest  calcula¬ 
tions,  loan  amortizations  with  balloons,  fu¬ 
ture  value  annuities  (accruals),  and  dollar 
prorations  over  dated  periods.  Additionally, 
amortization  schedules  may  be  printed  for 
clients.  The  Analyzer  is  especially  helpful  in 
areas  of  real  estate  closings,  intercorporate 
transactions,  and  collections  work.  $200. 
The  Firm  Solution.  A  comprehensive  law 
office  management  system  that  incorporates 
the  time-keeping  and  billing,  accounts  receiv¬ 
able  and  productivity  management  functions 
in  an  integrated  package.  The  package  fea¬ 
tures  optional  prebilling  worksheets  for  at¬ 
torney  review,  attorney-selected  bill  formats 
for  each  matter,  comments,  a  variety  of  fee 
arrangements,  multiple  rates  per  attorney 
and  numerous  inquiry  options.  The  system 
includes  attorney  productivity  reporting, 
aged  accounts  receivable  analysis,  aged  un¬ 
billed  time  analysis,  attorney  activity  recap, 
conflict  of  interest  testing,  and  user-defined 
selective  client  and  matter  reports.  W/CP/ 
M-86.  $2,000. 

Information  Unlimited  Software 

Sausalito,  CA 

EasyBusiness  Systems.  Consists  of  five  ac¬ 


counting  programs.  Produce  customized  re¬ 
ports.  Members  of  the  EasyBusiness  Systems 
family  include  general  ledger  and  financial 
reporter,  accounts  receivable,  accounts  pay¬ 
able,  order  entry,  inventory  control  and 
analysis,  and  payroll.  Each  program,  $595. 

Innovative  Software 
Overland  Park,  KS 

Fast  Facts.  Information  may  be  entered  into 
customized  forms,  stored  on  disk,  and  re¬ 
trieved  at  the  touch  of  a  key.  Will  interface  to 
popular  spreadsheets,  word  processors,  and 
Fast  Graphs .  $195. 

T.I.M.  Executives'  data  manager  provides 
powerful  and  flexible  organization  of  diverse 
business  information.  Complete  menu- 
driven  approach  and  on-screen  help  make 
custom  data  files  a  snap  to  create,  edit,  up¬ 
date  and  organize.  Multilevel  sorts,  calcula¬ 
tions,  and  multiple  criteria  selects  provide 
endless  list,  report,  and  form  possibilities. 
$495. 

Insoft,  Inc. 

Beaverton,  OR 

Data  Design.  Managing  office  information  is 
now  easy  with  Data  Design ,  the  first  data¬ 
base  manager  designed  specifically  for  the  pc. 
Uses  the  cursor  and  function  keys.  Supports 
multiple  user-defined  data  tables  and  input/ 
output  forms.  Twenty-six  forms  can  be 
created  for  each  table.  $225. 

Insoft  Accountant .  A  comprehensive  menu- 
driven  accounting  system  designed  for  CPAs 
and  small-  to  medium-sized  businesses.  Con¬ 
sists  of  four  packages — general  ledger,  ac¬ 
counts  receivable,  accounts  payable,  and 
payroll.  Each  package  may  be  used  indepen¬ 
dently  or  will  post  directly  to  the  general 
ledger.  The  system  handles  departments, 
prints,  invoice  statements,  aged  accounts  re¬ 
ceivable  and  payable,  payroll  checks,  and 
W2s.  $365. 

Intelligent  Software 

San  Diego,  CA 

Money  Minder  Accounts  Receivable.  Cre¬ 
ates  aging,  tax,  sales,  credit  limit,  and  delin¬ 
quent  account  reports  in  seconds.  Produces 
statements  on  blank  paper  or  standard 
forms.  Password  security,  help  key,  screen  in¬ 
structions,  extensive  documentation,  and 
testing  for  balance.  Interfaces  with  Money 
Minder  General  Ledger .  $250. 

Money  Minder  Accounts  Payable.  Features 
check  printing,  cash  requirements  reports, 
aging,  check  register,  and  many  other  re¬ 
ports.  Password  security,  help  key,  screen  in¬ 
structions,  extensive  documentation,  and 
testing  for  balance.  Interfaces  with  Money 
Minder  General  Ledger.  $250. 

Money  Minder  General  Ledger  Produces 
more  than  seventeen  reports  in  various  for¬ 
mats,  including  balance  sheets,  income  state¬ 
ments,  and  trial  balance.  Multilevel 


130 


softcilk 


Business 

password  protection,  tests  for  balance,  year 
to  date,  departmental,  and  prior  period  com¬ 
parative  reports.  Interfaces  with  other 
Money  Minder  Modules.  Includes  extensive 
documentation,  sample  chart  of  accounts 
disk.  $350. 

International  Computers 

Mexico  Beach,  FL 

Mr.  Lister.  Data  files  may  contain  10  million 
entries  (disk  space  allowing).  Selectively 
merge  many  mail  lists  into  one  new  mail  list. 
Mail  lists  acquired  on  tape  may  be  used  to 
create  compatible  mail  list  databases.  Money 
back  guarantee.  For  the  XT.  $500. 

International  Software  Alliance 
Santa  Barbara,  CA 

Super  Mail  List.  More  than  enough  space  is 
provided  for  name,  company  name,  and  ad¬ 
dress  information;  editing  a  member's  infor¬ 
mation  is  very  easy.  Wild  cards  can  be  used 
to  speed  data  entry  and  for  finding  a  member 
when  uncertain  about  spelling.  Special 
WordStar  interface  allows  you  to  merge  your 
list  with  WordStar  form  letters.  Maximum 
1,000  members.  $39. 

General  Ledger  with  Graphics.  Powerful 


enough  for  CPA  client  write-up  work,  yet 
easy  to  use  as  a  cash  management  tool.  An 
excellent  array  of  reports  are  available,  as 
well  as  the  ability  to  graph  and  compare  data 
from  any  accounts.  Excellent  audit  trails  are 
provided  by  the  journal  entry  proof  report 
and  the  general  ledger  posting  report.  $295. 

Intra  Computer 

New  York,  NY 

Printer  X  Switch.  Permits  businesses  with 
two  computers  and  two  parallel  printers 
(dot-matrix  and  daisy  wheel)  to  direct  either 
computer  s  output  to  either  printer  for  word 
processing  or  graphics.  Includes  printer  ca¬ 
bles.  $220. 

Intra  Day  Analyst 
New  Orleans,  LA 

Intra  Day  Analyst  for  Commodities.  Pro¬ 
vides  real-time  graphics  and  technical  analy¬ 
sis  for  futures  price  action.  Tracks  twenty 
commodities.  Each  has  a  variable-length  bar 
chart  and  one  of  fourteen  technical  studies 
on-screen  simultaneously.  A  strong  support 
system  is  maintained  for  user  problems. 
Members  receive  regular  updates.  $1,500. 

Investor's  Software 
Bradenton  Beach,  FL 
Evaluation  Form.  A  computerization  of  the 


National  Association  of  Investment  Clubs' 
famous  method  of  common  stock  selection. 
No  modem  is  required.  $80. 

ISYS  Corp. 

Cambridge,  MA 

Investment  Software  and  Data  Service. 
Large-scale  investment  database  on  monthly 
disks.  Includes  instant  screening  of  1,400 
stocks  on  fifty-two  variables.  Industry  analy¬ 
sis,  stock  valuation  analysis,  portfolio  analy¬ 
sis.  No  time-sharing  costs,  no  variable  costs 
per  use.  Direct  data  transfer  from  micro /scan 
to  VisiCalc  with  no  transfer  cost.  Daily  stock 
price  updates  if  desired.  Annual  subscription 
fee,  $6,250. 

Johnson  Associates  Software  Inc. 
Redding,  CA 

Chiropractic  Records  System.  Provides  pa¬ 
tient  records,  billing,  claims  processing,  and 
practice  management.  The  system  is  de¬ 
signed  to  minimize  the  chance  of  operator  er¬ 
ror  and  reduce  the  training  of  personnel.  The 
application  is  based  on  processing  of  individ¬ 
ual  transactions  and,  therefore,  is  equally  us¬ 
able  in  the  front  office  or  in  the  "back  room." 
The  system  is  flexible  in  that  various  report/ 
statement  formats  are  selected  at  installation 
time.  A  complete  audit  trail  is  produced  as  a 
basic  design  philosophy.  $2,000. 


ARE  YOUR 
CORDS  AND 
CABLES 
GETTING 
YOU  DOWN? 


GET  THEM  UP  AND  OUT  OF  THE  WAY  WITH  THE 

<f^“CORD  &  CABLE 

pr!cedUCt0ry 


-  *3£gsr 

•  No  more  tangles  *  Conveniently  mounts  under 
desk  or  table  •  Rugged  steel  basket  with  plastic 
coating  •  Includes  plastic  cable  ties  •  Size  6" 
wide,  12"  long,  4"  deep  vn/xmj 

VISA/MC  okay  til6  llw/iNI 

Include  Expiration  date  * _ ^ _ f— _ 

_ interlace  group 

1-800-328-5727  Ext.  135B 

3938  Meadowbrook  Road,  Minneapolis,  MN  55426. 
A  Division  of  Dynalysis  Corporation.  Dealer  inquiries  invited. 
For  tech.  info,  and  Minn,  residents,  call  (612)938-8697 


ft 


a  to*  V 

n  Add  $2 

^  for  postage 

,\>  SKmcoT 

•  p$'s  K 

the  IRON 

interface  group 

.  1-800-328-5727  Ext.  135 

3938  Meadowbrook  Road,  Minneapolis,  MN  55426 
Dealer  inquiries  invited.  Minn,  residents  call  (612)  938-8697 


for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


131 


Business 


Medical  Records  System .  Provides  patient 
records,  billing,  claims  processing,  and  prac¬ 
tice  management.  The  system  is  designed  to 
minimize  the  chance  of  operator  error  and  re¬ 
duce  the  training  of  personnel.  The  applica¬ 
tion  is  based  on  processing  of  individual 
transactions  and,  therefore,  is  equally  usable 
in  the  front  office  or  in  the  "back  room."  The 
system  is  flexible  in  that  various  report /state¬ 
ment  formats  are  selected  at  installation 
time.  A  complete  audit  trail  is  produced  as  a 
basic  design  philosophy.  $2,000. 

Jupiter  Island  Corp. 

Emeryville,  CA 

microCellarmaster.  A  beverage  inventory 
and  wine-list  printing  program.  Maintains 
detailed  inventory  for  up  to  forty  locations. 
Prints  elegant  wine  lists.  Produces  many  ad¬ 
ministrative  reports.  Single-user  package, 
$750.  Multiuser,  $1,500. 

Keller  Software 
Newport  Beach,  CA 
HAL3001.  A  statistical  analysis  software 
package  for  medium  and  large  datasets. 
Functions  include  data  entry,  univariate  sta¬ 
tistics,  linear  regression,  analysis  of  variance, 
t-test,  plots,  chi-square,  histograms,  trans¬ 
formations,  and  utility  functions.  $495. 

Key  Software 
Des  Plaines,  IL 

ResQ.  Sorting,  record  selection,  and  printing 
of  reports  catalogued  as  a  simple  procedure 
for  easy  use.  Exports /imports  ASCII  files, 
joins  files,  password  protection,  English 
manual  help  screens.  $395. 

L.  C.  Systems 
Coralville,  IA 

Assistant .  An  accounting  system  for  per¬ 
sonal  or  small-business  users.  Double-entry 
accounting.  Complete  financial  reports:  bal¬ 
ance  sheet /income  statement,  trial  balance, 
general  ledger.  Up  to  five  checking  accounts 
automatically  integrated  into  ledger.  $100. 

Learning  Tools,  Inc. 

Cambridge,  MA 

Customer-Info,  General  purpose  marketing 
and  product  support  system  for  retail  stores, 
distributors,  and  manufacturers.  Provides 
customers  with  information  about  store 
products  and  services.  Particularly  well 
suited  to  retail  operations  where  it  is  difficult 
for  the  sales  staff  to  stay  up-to-date  on  a  large 
and  changing  inventory  of  products  and 
services  and  where  customer  support  for 
technical  products  is  important.  Information 
easily  modified.  Menu-driven.  $395. 


Link  Systems 
Santa  Monica,  CA 

Data  Fax  File  Management  System.  Allows 
storage/retrieval  of  text  files  without  the 
need  for  forms  or  structure.  Information  is 
stored  as  "pages"  in  a  "folder"  which  can  be 
filed,  retrieved,  and  cross  referenced  by  up  to 
100  keywords  per  folder.  $299. 

Lotus  Development  Corp. 

Cambridge,  MA 

1-2-3.  Combines  electronic  spreadsheets,  in¬ 
formation  management,  and  graphics  in  a 
single,  fast,  easy-to-use  software  package. 
The  package  is  integrated  on  one  disk  for  use 
on  microcomputers.  You  can  go  from  one 
format  to  another  by  pressing  a  few  keys. 
You  change  spreadsheet  data  directly  into 
graph  form  or  take  data  from  your  informa¬ 
tion  file  and  plug  it  into  a  spreadsheet  in  less 
than  a  second.  The  spreadsheet  offers  256 
columns  and  2,048  rows.  $495. 

McMullen  and  McMullen,  Inc. 

Jefferson  Valley,  NY 

Software  Courses.  Hands-on  classes  that  can 
be  held  at  the  customer's  location  with  the 
customer's  hardware.  Up  to  five  computers 
can  be  lined  up  (two  people  per  computer) 
for  each  four-hour  session.  Courses  are  avail¬ 
able  for  VisiCalc ,  2-2-3,  dBase  II,  and  other 
popular  business  software  packages.  Per  ses¬ 
sion,  $450. 

MediSoft 
Santa  Cruz,  CA 

SearchLit.  A  ready-to-use  program  for  the  pc 
that  stores  and  searches  information  related 
to  a  personal  literature  collection.  Each  refer¬ 
ence,  including  abstract  or  comment,  is 
stored  under  a  set  of  key  words.  Retrieval 
based  on  keywords  in  title,  abstract,  source, 
or  special  keyword  file.  $149.50. 

Megahaus  Corp. 

San  Diego,  CA 

MegaFinder.  An  easy-to-use  filing  system 
that  allows  you  to  create  the  form  of  your 
choice  and  then  file  information  away  using 
the  form.  Also  included  is  a  powerful  report 
generator.  $99.95. 

Metamorphics,  Inc. 

Bala  Cynwyd,  PA 

Metamorphics  Insurance  System.  Complete 
software  system  for  the  independent  insur¬ 
ance  agent.  Version  for  pc,  $2,650.  Version 
for  XT,  $3,650. 

Micro  Data  Base  Systems,  Inc. 
Lafayette,  IN 

KnowledgeMan.  An  all-in-one  information 
management  system  for  building  easy-to-use 
decision  support  systems.  Includes  integrated 
functions  such  as  relational  data  manager,  an 


ad  hoc  query  language  (like  IBM  SQL/DS),  a 
third-generation  spreadsheet,  a  full-scale 
programming  language,  and  more.  $500. 

Micro  Decision  Systems 
Pittsburgh,  PA 

2-2-3/VC  Formulae  Printer.  Used  by  finan¬ 
cial  analysis  to  review  complex  models  dur¬ 
ing  development.  Grid  arrangement  shows 
equations  in  correct  position  without  trun¬ 
cating.  All  global  details,  ranges,  graphs  re¬ 
ported.  $95. 

Micro-MRP,  Inc. 

Foster  City,  CA 

MAX,  the  Production  Manager.  A  "closed- 
loop"  production,  planning,  and  control  sys¬ 
tem  for  manufacturing  environments.  MAX 
runs  on  either  a  single-  or  multiuser  system. 
Modules  currently  available  include  bill  of 
materials,  inventory  control,  master  schedul¬ 
ing,  materials  requirements  planning, 
purchasing  control,  and  shop  floor  control. 
Future  additions  will  include  accounting 
modules. 

MicroLab,  Inc. 

Highland  Park,  CA 

The  Data  Factory.  Powerful  database  with 
flexible  entry  and  retrieval.  Formats  reports 
to  your  needs.  $300. 

The  Tax  Manager,  Easy  to  use  for  figuring 
federal  income  taxes  and  printing  returns. 
Extended  warranty  option  keeps  program 
current  with  the  latest  tax  laws.  $250. 

Microrim,  Inc. 

Bellevue,  WA 

R:base.  A  relational  database  management 
software  program  for  microcomputers.  Fea¬ 
tures  relational  data  validation,  which  allows 
data  entered  to  be  checked  for  accuracy  using 
selected  values  or  data  contained  in  other 
files.  Can  manage  forty  files  with  100  billion 
records.  Has  relation  and  attribute  lists.  Can 
automatically  identify  improper  syntax.  Al¬ 
lows  customization  of  screen  forms. 
"Drawn"  using  cursor  keys.  $495. 

Micro  Vision 
Commack,  NY 

Mathematical  Programming  Package  II.  A 
powerful  linear  programming  package.  It  is 
comprised  of  two  programs  which  imple¬ 
ment  Simple  Algorithm  with  sensitivity  anal¬ 
ysis  and  a  transportation  algorithm.  Its  fast 
execution  speed  is  well  complemented  by  its 
ability  to  solve  large  (about  80  by  100  matrix) 
problems.  It  is  fully  menu-driven  and  inter¬ 
active.  Various  options  for  the  presentation 
of  the  results  are  provided.  $89. 

Tax  Relief  II.  A  professional  tax  preparation 
package  specifically  designed  for  the  pc.  It 
supports  all  lettered  schedules,  commonly 
used  forms  and  a  depreciation  module.  The 
program  uses  a  very  efficient  and  convenient 


132 


SOftalk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


Compete  with  your  friends  or  play  by  yourself  in  this 
easy-to-use,  hard-to-master  game— designed  by  man¬ 
agement  consultants,  bankers,  and  software  experts 
to  give  you  the  management  challenge  of  your  life! 


Bank  President— first  in  the  Lewis  Lee 
Chief  Executive™  Series  of  exciting 
management  action  games. 

Do  you  feel  you  have  what  it  takes 
to  run  a  large  organization?  Well, 
here's  your  chance  1  See  how  well 
you  can  do  under  the  pressures  and  re¬ 
wards  top  executives  face.  Lewis  Lee's  new 
Chief  Executive™  Series— starting  with 
Bank  President — puts  YOU  in  charge. 

Executive  Competition 

As  the  Bank  President,  you  choose  and 
name  the  kind  of  outfit  you  want  to  run — 
a  centralized  business-oriented  bank,  or  a 
retail-oriented  one  with  many  branches. 
You  make  critical  business  decisions; 

*  Choose  your  product  lines 
•  Raise  or  lower  employee  salaries 


Bank  President  lets  you  monitor  your 
progress  with  clear  graphic  output. 


*  Issue  and  redeem  stocks  and  bonds 

*  Manage  your  investment  portfolio 

*  Speculate  on  interest  rates  or  hedge 
against  fluctuations 

*  Borrow  from  the  Federal  Reserve 

*  Set  loan  and  deposit  interest  rates 

IBM  and  Apple  Versions 

Bank  President  is  fun  to  play  by  yourself 
or  against  your  friends.  You  can  even  form 
teams,  with  each  team  managing  its  own 
bank  and  competing  against  the  other 
teams.  The  winner  is  the  one  whose  bank 
creates  the  most  wealth  for  its  stockholders 
during  the  course  of  the  game. 

Bank  President's  menu-driven  design  lets 
you  focus  on  management  action,  not  conv 
puter  operation.  Easy-to-read  graphs,  pie 
charts  and  bar  charts  track  your  success  and 
that  of  competitors.  The  user's  manual  even 
gives  you  tips  on  how  to  outperform  oppo¬ 
nents.  And  Bank  President  stays  challeng¬ 
ing — it  changes  every  time  you  play. 


Excitement  through  Realism 

You  learn  as  much  about  opponents'  de¬ 
cisions  and  the  business  environment  as  a 
bank  president  would,  in  cleaF  graphic  form . 
You  get  up-to-date  economic  information: 
T-bill  and  prime  interest  rates,  consumer 
price  indices,  GNP  and  stock  market  levels. 

Your  decisions  lead  your  bank  to  success 
— or  failure*  Bank  President  uses  sophisti¬ 
cated,  realistic  formulas  to  determine  the 
winning  bank. 

You  use  your  computer  for  work.  Now 
you  can  play,  too — at  your  level.  Contact 
Lewis  Lee  today  to  become — the  Bank 
President* 


lewislee 

^CORPORATION  W 

1646  Portola  Ave.,  Palo  Alto,  CA  94306  <4 15)  853-1220 


LfWiS  LEE  CORPORATION 
1646  Porto  .  Avenue 
Paid  Alto,  CA  94306 
(415)  653-1220 

iopfes  of  Bonk  President  ol 


Ptiooe  Orde-nr 
Please  »nd  im 
$74  95  finch.  (California  residents  add  6%  sales  lax.) 
Q  IBM  PC  flr  XT  □  Apple  II,  11+  r  llfi 
D  Check  or  Monty  Order  inclosed 


□  Vlw  □  MasterCard 


Address., 
city _ 


Exp.  date_ 
Signature. 


^  Dealer  Inquiries  Invited 


(Credit  card  charges  not  valid  unless  signed) 
ST1-1Z/B3 


lank  President,  Chlel  Executive  and  Lewis  Lee  are  trademarks  ol  Lewis  Lee  Corporation.  IBM  ti  a  registered  trademark  or  IBM.  Apple  is  a  registered  trademark  ol  Apple  Computer  Inc. 


Business 


method  of  data  entry,  editing,  and  reviewing. 
Such  features  as  RAM  disk  and  on-line  help 
are  provided  to  further  enhance  the  ease  of 
use  and  productivity.  Prints  returns  on  IRS 
forms  or  overlays.  Batch  printing  is  sup¬ 
ported.  $299. 

Miles  Consulting,  Inc. 

New  Orleans,  LA 

Fastfanny.  Aids  in  the  completion  of  the 
FNMA  1004  Residential  Appraisal  Report.  It 
helps  the  appraiser  do  a  complete  analysis  of 
each  comparable  sale.  Cost  data  and  market 
adjustment  are  derived  from  comparable 
sale.  Cost  data  and  form  can  be  filled  out  on 
the  display  screen.  An  estimate  of  the  value  is 
printed  in  just  a  few  seconds.  $500. 
Fastbucks.  Income  property  analysis  pro¬ 
gram  can  calculate  an  after-tax  internal  rate 
of  return  or  investment  value.  Operating 
statements  can  be  constructed  and  after-tax 
cash  flows  can  be  projected.  Results  are  sum¬ 
marized  in  a  concise  client-oriented  report. 
$250. 

Morgan  Computing  Company,  Inc. 
Dallas,  TX 

Partnership  Reporting  System.  A  partner¬ 
ship  reporting  system  for  either  the  oil  and 
gas  or  real  estate  industry.  Provides  investors 
financial  statements  on  the  status  of  each  in¬ 
vestment  and  partnership.  Requires  128K. 
$1,500. 

PathFinder.  Tool  for  project  planning  using 
the  critical  path  method.  Set  up  projects 
while  prioritizing  the  sequence  of  steps  to  be 
accomplished.  This  program  will  project  the 
time  to  complete  the  project  while  charting 
the  critical  path  and  producing  a  time  sched¬ 
ule  chart.  Requires  128K.  $80. 

MLR.  A  multiple  linear  regression  statistical 
program  for  the  social  sciences  and  business. 
The  program  handles  up  to  ten  variables  in 
analyzing  the  relationships  among  a  set  of 
variables,  and  provides  a  complete  set  of  sta¬ 
tistical  information.  Requires  128K.  $100. 
Simplex  PC.  For  a  variety  of  cost  control, 
profit  maximization,  and  other  optimization 
type  situations.  It  solves  linear  programming 
problems  with  up  to  a  50  x  50  matrix  and  pro¬ 
vides  the  option  to  display  each  iteration  of 
the  derivation.  $49.95. 

Simplex  PC  II.  An  extension  of  Simplex  PC 
with  expanded  capabilities.  Provides  for  a 
100  x  100  matrix  in  a  128K  machine.  Uses  a 
spreadsheet  program  ( VisiCalc ,  Lotus  1-2-3) 
to  set  up  problems  (with  complete  names  for 
variables)  and,  after  execution,  to  view  the 
problem  solution  (final  tableau).  $100. 
TaxComp.  Spreadsheet  (VisiCalc,  Lotus  1-2- 
3)  template  for  1040  tax  return  preparation 
and  planning.  Includes  most  frequently  used 


schedules  and  attachments  (A,  B,  C,  D,  E,  G, 
SE,  2106,  2441,  and  3468).  Automatically 
computes  income  averaging  to  gain  lowest 
tax  total.  Requires  128K.  $100. 

Mosaic  Software,  Inc. 

Cambridge,  MA 

Integrated  6.  Totally  integrated,  designed  for 
business  managers.  Includes  spreadsheet 
modeling,  presentation  quality  graphics,  re¬ 
lational  database,  word  processing,  terminal 
emulation  (DEC  VT-100,  VT-52,  and  IBM 
3101),  and  communications  between  pcs  and 
commercial  databases.  Functions  interact 
fully  for  gathering  business  data,  analyzing/ 
modeling,  and  presenting  as  reports  and 
memos  with  spreadsheets  and  graphs  incor¬ 
porated.  $495. 

NewsNet,  Inc. 

Bryn  Mawr,  PA 

NewsNet.  Distributes  more  than  125  special¬ 
ized  business  newsletters,  on-line.  Latest  is¬ 
sues  often  available  on-line  days  before  print 
editions.  Prices  start  at  $18  per  hour. 

New  York  Zoetrope 
New  York,  NY 

Directory  of  Online  Databases.  1,500  on-line 
databases  and  services  available  via  personal 
computers,  terminals,  and  video  text  receiv¬ 
ers.  Descriptions  include  subject,  content, 
analyses,  producer,  address,  and  price. 
$29.95. 

Nissim  Associates 
San  Francisco,  CA 

Multi  Currency  General  Ledger  Program. 
Produces  financial  reports  by  currency  and 
consolidated  into  a  single  currency.  All  trans¬ 
actions  stored  in  original  currency.  Auto¬ 
matic  calculation  of  gain  and  loss  from  RATE 
movements.  Account  statements  for  cus¬ 
tomer  or  due  from  /due  to  accounts.  FAS  52 
compatible.  For  banks  and  corporate  trea¬ 
surers.  Installation  and  training  included. 
$3,800. 

Foreign  Exchange  Trading  System.  Process, 
forward,  option,  and  hedge  contracts. 
Produces  on-line  detail  analysis  of  customer 
and  maturity  positions,  including  GAP  and 
break-even  calculations.  Produces  spot  and 
forward  revaluations,  contract  confirma¬ 
tions,  paying  and  receiving  report.  Full  ac¬ 
counting  interface  to  Multicurrency  General 
Ledger.  Installation  and  training  included. 
$5,800. 

Norell  Data  Systems  Corp. 

Los  Angeles,  CA 

Easycalc.  Simple,  easy-to-use  calculating 
tool  can  be  used  to  compute  your  budget, 
record  and  project  your  investment  returns, 
even  do  your  taxes.  Easycalc  provides  the 
most  important  capabilities  of  a  two-dimen¬ 


sional  'What  if?"  calculator  program,  includ¬ 
ing  formulas,  labels,  variable  column  width, 
and  print  to  line  printer  or  disk  file.  Simple 
keystroke  commands  allow  operations  on 
entire  rows  or  columns  to  conveniently  re¬ 
arrange  data.  $99.95. 

Visualize.  A  documentation  utility  program 
that  helps  the  user  of  VisiCalc  in  the  design, 
development,  and  documentation  of  tem¬ 
plate  spreadsheets.  Hardcopy  reports  of  the 
template  layout,  the  calculations  report  in¬ 
cludes  file  information,  size  statistics,  and 
global  parameters.  Three  sample  application 
templates  are  included— check  register,  cash 
flow,  and  balance  sheet  and  operating  state¬ 
ment.  All  sample  templates  are  fully  annota¬ 
ted  and  the  package  comes  completely 
documented.  $100. 

Norfork  Systems 
Laurel  Springs,  NJ 

PC-Orgchart.  Never  again  draw  another  or¬ 
ganization  chart.  Allows  you  to  create,  mod¬ 
ify,  and  delete  entries.  Displays  finished 
charts  on  screen  prior  to  printing.  $75. 

North  America  MICA  Inc. 

San  Diego,  CA 

PMS-II.  A  full-scale  critical  path  project 
management  system  which  calculates  early 
and  late  start  and  finish,  float  and  critical 
path(s)  for  networks  of  up  to  1,250  activities 
in  64K  or  2,500  activities  in  a  128K  16-bit  ma¬ 
chine.  With  its  super-  and  subnetworking 
features,  project  size  is  unlimited.  The  system 
prints  activity  reports  and  Gantt  charts  with 
extensive  sort  and  select  capabilities,  the  ac¬ 
tivity  diagram,  funding  schedule  and  graph, 
and  three-part  earned  value  analysis  reports. 
RMS-II.  A  resource  management  subsystem 
designed  for  use  with  PMS-II,  allows  the 
definition  of  up  to  ninety-six  resource  cen¬ 
ters,  each  with  a  unique  capacity  in  hours  per 
day,  and  a  wage  and  burden  rate.  Any  por¬ 
tion  of  any  resource  can  be  allocated  to  any 
activity  in  any  project  defined  under  PMS-II. 
Reports  can  be  generated  for  one  center  or 
any  combination  of  centers  showing  line  item 
detail  allocations,  as  well  as  bar  graphs 
showing  allocations  as  a  percentage  of  capac¬ 
ity  (zero  percent  to  200  percent)  over  time. 

Omega  Software,  Inc. 

Chicago,  IL 

The  Chart  Trader  Plus.  Package  with  various 
programs  that  allow  making  an  in-depth 
analysis  of  a  portfolio  as  well  as  being  able  to 
predict  price  movements  in  both  the  futures 
and  the  equity  markets.  This  package  in¬ 
cludes  high-resolution  graphics  that  can 
chart  up  to  240  days  at  once  and  data  file 
management.  $199.95. 

Tax  Templates.  VisiCalc  templates  that  will 
handle  most  of  the  tax  schedules  used  in  con¬ 
junction  with  the  federal  1040  forms.  A  copy 


134 


softotk  for  the  IBM.  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


THE  NEW  STANDARD 

THE  MICR05 


■lii^ 


MSB? 


Microsoft,  the 
people  who  set  the 
standard  for  software, 
have  done  it  again  with  the 
Microsoft*  Mouse. 

Our  expertise  in  both  hardware  and 
software  has  gone  into  the  develop' 
mentof  the  Microsoft  Mouse.  Now 
you  can  plug  in  the  most  exciting 
computer  product  of  the  year  and  J 
put  it  to  work. 

The  Mouse  lets  you  move  the 
cursor  freely  and  naturally,  then 
execute  commands  at 
the  push  of  a  button. 

The  Microsoft  Mouse  is  a 
complete  system.  It  comes 
with  an  on  screen  tutorial,  a 
practice  application,  and  the 
Multi-Tool™  Notepad,  a  mouse-based 
text  editor,  so  you  can  begin 
using  the  Mouse  right  away.  And 
for  application  developers,  the 
Mouse  includes  a  programmable 


•*— — . 


interface 
driver  to  give 
your  application 
program  complete 
control  over  the  Mouse's 
operation. 

That's  the  kind  of  support  you’d  expect 
from  Microsoft.  After  all,  we  were  the 
world's  first  microcomputer  software 
company.  Today,  more  than  a  million 
microcomputers  are  running  Micro¬ 
soft  languages,  operating  systems, 
application  programs,  and  hardware- 
software  combinations. 

You  can  get  the  Micro¬ 
soft  Mouse  in  dedi¬ 
cated  versions  for  the 
IBM.-PC.PC  XT  and 
in  a  version  for  MS™- 
DOS  machines  with 
serial  interfaces, 
including  the  IBM- 
PC.The  Mouse 
supports  all 
versions  of 
MS-DOS, 
including  ver¬ 
sion  2.0.  Ask  your 
Microsoft  dealer 
for  a  demonstration 
of  the  Microsoft  Mouse 
—a  whole  new  standard. 

BETTER  TOOLS  FOR  MICROCOMPUTERS 

^  MICROSOFT 


Microsoft  is  a  registered  trademark, 
and  MS  and  the  Microsoft  logo  are 
trademarks  of  Microsoft  Corporation. 


Introducing 


\  /ON 


EXECUVISION 

TWl 

The  Presentation  Graphics  Program 


the  erase  ci!  ns  oh 

COM  m:  SCALED  TO 
ANY  or  THK  HXFL 
|J0)  NT  s  I  ZES  ;  I  - 


Complete  design  capabilities... 
64  color  schemes.. .10  type 
styles. 


THE  SKETCH 
FUNCTION 
INWOLUES  THE 
MANIPULATION 
OF  PIXEL  DOTS 
AND  LINES 
TOM AND  FULL 
PICTURE 
DEVELOPMENT 


Electronic  cut  and  paste  facility 
allows  you  to  move,  combine  or 
erase  any  object  or  text. 


TO  ERASE  ANY 
PORTION  OP  A 
SLIDE  OH  FIX 
USE  EITHER  THE 
TOOL  ERASER 
ON 

THE  CUT  A  DELETE 
FUNCTIONS , 


Automatic  pie,  bar  or  line  graphs 
with  a  special  PLOT  function. 


HlfWVAET  aHnnE 


PC  Pricu  Components 

■  Harass 


-;r  Tl 


EDUCATIONAL 
NONE  USERS 


PC  PRICE  DECREASE? 

AS  PC  BUYERS 
t  ItPTREASE 


COM>!!fe!ifoNS 


Now  you  can  prepare  tomorrow  morning’s 
presentation,  tonight! 


If  you're  like  most  professionals,  you  spend  a  lot  of  time  prepar¬ 
ing  and  delivering  presentations*  To  your  associates,  Tb  clients. 
And,  of  course,  to  top  management*  Unfortunately,  you  don't 
always  have  the  time  or  resources  at  hand  to  put  together  a  visual 
presentation  which  will  put  you  in  the  best  possible  light* 

Enter  VCN  EXECUVISION,  ,,  state-of-the-art  presentation 
graphics  software  from  the  Business  and  Professional  Division  of 
Prentice-Hall,  Inc.  VCN  EXECUVISION  takes  all  of  your 
research,  facts  and  analyses,  and  transforms  them  into  powerful 
graphic  images  for  use  in  any  multi-media  presentation* 

The  Only  Presentation  Package  You  Need. 

Not  only  will  VCN  EXECUVISION  allow  you  to  create  charts 
and  graphs  with  its  automatic  PLOT  function,  it  offers  you  com¬ 
plete  design  capabilities  in  10  typefaces  and  64  color  schemes  to 
enhance  the  impact  and  professional  quality  of  your  presentation* 
There  is  no  limit  to  the  variety  of  pictures,  graphs  and  charts  that 
can  he  created,  displayed  and  updated* 

VCN  EXECUVISION  can  even  animate  your  presentations  with 
an  astounding  array  of  motion  processes,  without  cumbersome 
software  changes. 

Best  of  all,  you  don't  have  to  be  an  artist  to  use  VCN  EXECU¬ 


VISION  skillfully*  Every  function  is  offered  in  a  series  of  easy  to 
follow  menus  so  that  you  utilize  maximum  graphics  capabilities 
with  speed  and  simplicity.  The  program  comes  with  its  own  highly 
acclaimed  interactive  demonstration  disk,  plus  easy  to  understand 
systems  documentation  with  full  color  sample  illustrations* 

VCN  EXECUVISION  can  immediately  be  put  to  work  making  all 
of  your  presentations— and  you— look  sharper,  more  prepared, 
more  professional.  And  VCN  EXECUVISION  does  so  with  sub¬ 
stantial  reductions  in  cost  compared  with  professional  graphic  art¬ 
ist  fees  or  dedicated  graphics  processor  fees. 

EXCLUSIVE!  Your  Own  Graphic  Libraries! 

With  VCN  EXECUVISION  you  can  make  use  of  these  special 
add-on  software  libraries  of  professionally  pre-rendered  images: 

•  The  Professional  Series 

(depictions  of  figures  representing  every  major  profession) 

•  The  Business  and  Industry  Series 

•  Maps  and  International  Symbols 

•  Initials  and  Backgrounds 

•  Graphic  Borders 

You  can  also  create  your  own  library  of  charts,  pictures,  symbols 
or  logos  and  store  them  for  future  reordering  or  rearranging* 


I 


VCN  EXECUVISION 
FEATURES: 

1.  Complete  menu-driven  operation 

2.  Full  color  user  manual 

3.  Tutorial  demonstration  disk  with 
program 

4.  Libraries  of  hundreds  of  pre¬ 
rendered  images 

5.  Electronic  cut  and  paste  facility  to 
move,  combine  or  erase  any  object 
or  text 

6.  Pie,  bar,  and  line  graphs  with 
special  automatic  PLOT  function 

7.  Animation  and  motion  techniques 

8.  Automatic  run -time  options 

9.  Complete  design  capabilities 

10*  64  color  schemes  and  10  type  styles 


Complete  libraries  of  hundreds 
of  highly  detailed  images, ..from 
people  to  products,,, energy  to 
entertainment 


VCN  EXECUVISION  Presentation  Graphics 
Program  is  designed  by  Visual  Communi¬ 
cations  Network,  Inc.  (VCN)  for  the  IBM  PC. 
It  is  the  only  presentation  graphics  package 
to  meet  the  standards  of  the  Business  and 
Professional  Division  of  Prentice- Hall,  Inc. 

For  a  demonstration  of  VCN  EXECU¬ 
VISION,  visit  your  nearest  computer  store. 
Or  call  toll-free  800-345-8112  (PA  residents: 
800-662-2444),  or  write  to;  Denise  Baer, 
Prentice -Hall,  Inc.,  200  Old  l^ppan  Road, 
Old  Thppan,  NJ  07675. 


Animation,,, automatic  run-time 
options. 


©1983  Prentice- Halljne, 

®  IBM  is  the  registered  trademark  of  International  Business  Machines  Corporation. 


Business 


of  Laser's  Your  Income  Tax  is  included.  De¬ 
signed  for  use  with  versions  of  VisiCalc  pro¬ 
viding  Data  Interchange  Format  (DIF)  and 
Boolean  Logic  @IF  functions.  The  Advanced 
Version  of  VisiCalc  for  the  pc  may  be  used. 
$49.95. 

Omni  Software  Systems.  Inc 
Griffith,  IN 

Complete  Business  System.  Includes  general 
ledger,  accounts  receivable,  accounts  pay¬ 
able,  and  payroll.  All  programs  interact  with 
each  other.  Flexible  formatting  and  screen 
prompting.  Prints  checks,  financial  state¬ 
ments,  and  several  reports  and  schedules. 
$500. 

The  Stock  Manager.  A  stock  portfolio  system 
for  the  small  or  large  investor.  Handles  up  to 
500  stocks  on  a  double-density  disk.  Prepares 
several  reports,  including  those  used  for  the 
investors  tax  return.  $150. 

After-The-Fact  Payroll  For  use  by  account¬ 
ants  who  provide  bookkeeping  services  to 
small  businesses.  Prepares  all  necessary  re¬ 
ports  and  schedules.  $250. 

Form  §1099  Generator.  Used  by  the  profes¬ 
sional  accountant  to  prepare  necessary  infor¬ 
mation  Form  #1099  for  clients.  $150. 

1040  System.  For  use  by  accountants  to  pre¬ 
pare  federal  and  state  tax  returns.  Includes  all 
schedules  and  reports  necessary  to  file  a  pro¬ 
fessional  tax  return.  $1,050. 

Payroll.  Prepares  complete  payroll  for  any 
small  business.  Includes  programs  for  the 
preparation  of  all  federal  and  state  reports. 
Prints  checks  and  various  reports  and  sched¬ 
ules.  $250. 

The  Accountant.  Designed  to  provide  an 
easy  method  for  keeping  a  set  of  records  and 
producing  financial  statements  that  are  com¬ 
parable  to  those  prepared  by  a  professional 
accountant.  $200. 

Account  Analysis.  Posts  to  more  than  sixty 
different  account  titles  that  conform  to 
the  business  portion  of  the  Federal  Income 
Tax  return.  $100. 

Depreciation.  Computes  depreciation  using 
four  different  methods  and  is  newly  updated 
to  comply  with  ACRS  rules.  Designed  for  the 
professional  accountant.  $250. 

On-Line  Response,  Inc. 

Chicago,  IL 

PCQuote.  The  "real-time"  quote  and  portfo¬ 
lio  management  package  is  a  professional- 
quality  stock  market  information  system. 
This  software  has  been  designed  as  an  invest¬ 
ment  information  and  management  tool  for 
the  professional  trader  and  investor.  $495. 

Options-80 
Concord,  MA 

Stock  Option  Analyzer.  Compares  alterna¬ 


tive  opportunities.  Allows  user  to  optimize 
return  based  on  judgment  of  how  share 
prices  will  behave.  Handles  buying  and  sell¬ 
ing  of  puts,  calls,  spreads.  Includes  risk,  com¬ 
missions,  cost  of  money,  and  dividends. 
Graphs  and  tables.  Prints  and  stores  to  disk. 
$125. 

OR-D  System 
Cherry  Hill,  NJ 

A  Complete  Dental  Management  System . 
Per-visit  billing,  daily  income,  various  insur¬ 
ance  forms,  insurance  monitoring  by  patient, 
complete  accounts  payable  system,  state-of- 
the-art  recall  system.  Marketing  and  letter¬ 
writing  feature,  provider  analysis  reports, 
patient  history,  and  more.  In  Pascal  for  hard 
disk  system.  Easy  to  customize.  $3,500. 

A  Complete  Medical  Management  System . 
Diagnosis,  treatments,  and  prescriptions. 
Various  insurance  forms,  insurance  monitor¬ 
ing  by  patient,  complete  accounts  payable 
system,  and  various  management  reports, 
such  as  aging  and  provider  analysis,  market¬ 
ing  and  letter-writing,  and  state-of-the-art  re¬ 
call  system.  In  Pascal  for  hard  disk  system. 
Easy  to  customize.  $3,500. 

Legal  System.  Includes  time  billing,  trust  ac¬ 
count,  and  case  monitoring  by  various  dates. 
Unlimited  amount  of  reports  to  choose  from. 
Keeps  track  of  amount  owed  according  to  ar¬ 
rangements,  complete  accounting  system. 
Balance  checks  and  get  various  reports,  such 
as  aging  and  attorney  production.  In  Pascal 
for  hard  disk  system.  Easy  to  customize. 
$3,500. 

Orrington  Economics,  Inc. 

Arlington,  VA 

Micromarkets  IL  A  database  of  demographic 
and  retail  sales  variables  for  use  by  market 
researchers  and  sales  managers.  Designed  for 
easy  use  with  VisiCalc  and  other  spreadsheet 
programs.  Contains  information  for  each 
state  and  for  each  of  the  two  hundred  largest 
metropolitan  areas.  $99. 

Owl  Software  Corp. 

North  Hollywood,  CA 
Textplus.  A  fast  integrated  program,  includes 
a  powerful  word  processor,  a  data  file  man¬ 
ager,  and  print  spooler.  Textplus  does  mailing 
labels,  advanced  mail  merge,  calculations, 
file  inquiries,  selects,  sorts,  and  reports. 
Word  processing  functions  include  headers, 
footers,  page  numbering,  right  margin  justi¬ 
fication,  bold,  underlining,  subscripts,  and 
multiple  typestyles.  $240. 

Pacific  Software 
Berkeley,  CA 

Sequitur.  A  relational  database  management 
system  with  fully  integrated  word  process¬ 
ing.  Provides  a  visual  method  of  specifying 
selections,  sorts,  and  joins  that  allow  data 
manipulation  without  programming.  In¬ 


cludes  form  generator  with  complete  merg¬ 
ing  capabilities  for  form  letters  and  mail 
labels  along  with  report  writer.  $795. 

PBL  Corp. 

Wayzata,  MN 

Letterform  1000.  A  computer  desk  reference 
that  contains  more  than  1000  professionally 
written  letters  and  forms  on  disk  that  can  be 
read,  personalized,  and  printed  using  almost 
any  word  processing  software.  A  complete 
letter  reference  for  the  good  letter  writer,  and 
a  way  for  poor  letter  writers  to  quickly  write 
quality  letters.  $95. 

PCsoftware  of  San  Diego 
San  Diego,  CA 

Creatabase.  Menu-driven  information  soft¬ 
ware  with  help  screens,  sixteen  fields,  and  the 
ability  to  store  up  to  1,200  records  per  file 
(64K)  and  2,200  (128K).  $75. 

Performance  Engineered 
Programming 

Carlsbad,  CA 

Integrated  General  Ledger.  Inventory  con¬ 
trol,  order  entry,  accounts  receivable,  ac¬ 
counts  payable,  and  payroll  (for  all  fifty 
states).  Available  for  all  MS-DOS  comput¬ 
ers.  Without  payroll,  $595.  With  payroll, 
$795. 

P.M.S.  Inc. 

La  Canada,  CA 

Medical  Billing  System.  Handles  all  the  bil¬ 
ling  needs  of  up  to  ten  doctors  at  a  fraction  of 
the  cost  of  other  systems.  Ease  of  operation 
and  comprehensive  documentation  enable 
the  user  to  master  the  system  within  a  few 
hours.  It  handles  up  to  20,000  active  patients 
and  will  keep  track  of  detailed  transactions 
for  up  to  one  year.  Standard  insurance 
forms,  an  immediate  itemized  statement  at 
time  of  service,  plus  twenty-five  other  man¬ 
agement  reports  are  generated.  $2,495. 

PRO/PAC,  Inc. 

Houston,  TX 

Financial  Management  Models  for  the  Serv¬ 
ice  Firm.  A  series  of  planning  and  controlling 
VisiCalc  templates  that  enables  a  service  firm 
to  determine  billing  rates,  budget,  and  con¬ 
trol  projects,  plan  staffing,  monitor  billable 
time,  estimate  fees,  and  plan  cash  flow.  $295. 

Professional  Management  Systems, 
Inc. 

Waverly,  NE 

Dental  Disk.  Produces  management  reports, 
allows  easy  data  entry  daily  to  produce  in¬ 
surance  forms,  billing,  recall  notices,  lists, 
and  more.  From  $1,500. 

Spinal  Disk.  Chiropractic  office  management 
system  handles  daily  transactions,  billing, 
and  insurance  forms.  $1,500. 


138 


SO  (talk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


E-COM  is  a  Registered  Trademark 
of  the  U.S.  Postal  Service 


IBM  is  a  Registered  Trademark 
of  IBM  Inc, 


CP/M  is  a  Registered  Trademark 
of  Digital  Research 


A  POWERFUL  4  IN  1 
(SOON  TO  BE  5  IN  I) 
PROGRAM  FOR  IBM  PC 
AND  COMPATIBLES. 
ALSO  A  UNIVERSAL 
Z  80  CP/M  VERSION! 


MAIL  MERGER 

'rr'ty* 

^  *  Personalized  letters 

*  Labels 

*  Lists 


E-COM 

^  E-COM  will  soon  be  the 
fifth  member  of  THE 
ULTIMATE"  program 
The  power  of  electronic 
mailing  can  now  be 
DICTIONARY  yours  through  your 

modem  and  'THE 

13,000  words  (initially)  ultimate."  Your  l»‘ 
Add  your  own  words  sonaj,2e(j  fetters,  memos. 
Delete  words  and  rnvo,ces  can  now 

be  sent  anywhere  in  the 
country  within  48  hours. 
Ask  your  dealer  about 
this  free  enhancement. 


DATA  BASE 

*  On-screen 


WORD  PROCESSING  * 


W" 


Menu  driven 
Complete  cursor 
movement 
Footnoting 

Simultaneous  printing 
and  editing 
Global  search  and 
replace 

Many  other  powerful 
features 


On-screen  formattrng 
Multi-level  select  and 
sort 

Reports 
Form  fiN-rn 
Column  movement 


THE  ‘  "  V 

IN  USER  FRIENDLINESS!!! 


tad:  t:  "  Rcr~  c  rT-r 

Gtyr  t-  <  r'  \  ST/TJT 

Suggested  retail  price  S 38 5. 00 

Less  instant  rebate  SJJOjOO 

Your  price  with  this  ad  $275.00 

(offer  good  thru  Dec  31,  1983,  only) 

CONTACT  YOUR  NEAREST 
PARTICIPATING  DEALER  TODAY! 


STEP  UP  TO 


766  El  Camino  Real,  Suite  D 
San  Carlos,  CA  94070 


(415)  595-4466 


Business 


Optic  Disk .  Designed  for  optometric  field. 
Produces  management  reports,  prints  bills, 
recalls  patients,  prints  lists,  and  mail  labels. 
$1,500. 

Programmed  Press 

Elmont,  NY 

Commodities  and  Futures  Software,  Thir¬ 
teen  interactive  programs  for  commodities 
and  futures  to  evaluate  price,  risk,  and  return 
on  futures  or  commodities.  Software,  $100. 
Statistical  Software  for  Forecasting.  Twenty 
interactive  statistical  programs  for  forecast¬ 
ing.  Software,  $100. 

Investment  Software  Package.  Fifty  interac¬ 
tive  programs  for  anyone  interested  in  using 
computers  to  evaluate  price,  risks,  and  re¬ 
turn  on  investment.  Includes  stocks,  bonds, 
options,  futures,  foreign  exchange,  and  stat- 
pak.  Software,  $100. 

Bonds  and  Interest  Rates  Software.  Sixteen 
interactive  programs  on  bonds  and  interest 
rates  to  evaluate  price,  risk,  and  return  on 
fixed  income  investments.  Software,  $100. 
Option  Values  Software.  Based  on  the  best 
option  values  models,  eight  interactive  pro¬ 
grams  for  options  on  stock  or  futures,  for 
anyone  interested  in  using  computers  to 
evaluate  price,  risk,  and  return  on  options 
and  futures.  Software,  $100. 

Stock  Market  Software.  Seventeen  interac¬ 
tive  programs  for  investment  in  common 
stock,  for  anyone  interested  in  using  comput¬ 
ers  to  evaluate  price,  risk,  and  return  on  in¬ 
vestments.  Software,  $100. 

Foreign  Exchange  Software.  Eleven  interac¬ 
tive  profitable  programs  for  foreign  currency 
exchange.  Software,  $100. 

Quala 

Valencia,  CA 

Taskmanager.  Schedules  up  to  999  tasks  by 
starting  and  completion  dates,  department, 
person,  projects,  and  subprojects.  Produces 
reports  and  Gantt  charts  on  screen  or  printer. 
Requires  128K  of  memory.  $250. 

Realty  Software  Company 
Redondo  Beach,  CA 
APR  Loan  Analysis.  Loan  comparisons  are 
made  using  the  annual  percentage  rate  of  the 
loan  based  on  the  base  interest  rate  of  the 
loan,  loan  fees  (points),  prepaid  interest,  and 
the  term  of  the  loan.  $50. 

Construction  Cost/Profit.  For  builders  and 
investors  in  building  projects  allowing  a 
quick  analysis  of  potential  profits,  interest 
rates,  legal  fees,  demolition  and  construction 
costs,  land  draw,  and  financing  for  consider¬ 
ation  in  calculation  of  total  funds  necessary 
for  project  completion.  Several  possible 
building  projects  can  be  easily  compared  in 
minutes.  $50. 


Depreciation/ ACRS.  Schedules  of  straight 
line  depreciation  and  ACRS  calculations  are 
displayed  for  properties  purchased  between 
1981  and  1984.  Calculations  are  displayed 
for  assets  in  the  three-,  five-,  ten-  and  fifteen- 
year  life  categories  on  a  year-by-year  basis 
with  the  accumulated  totals.  The  printed  out¬ 
put  may  include  a  description  of  the  assets. 
$50. 

Income  Property  Analysis.  Aid  to  home  buy¬ 
ers,  sellers,  investors,  and  realtors.  Income, 
debt  service,  all  individual  expense  catego¬ 
ries,  and  the  resultant  net  cash  flow  are 
shown  on  printed  output  in  both  monthly 
and  yearly  amounts.  Superb  tool  for  com¬ 
paring  income  producing  properties.  $50. 
Loan  Amortization.  Calculates  loan  pay¬ 
ments  and  displays  a  schedule  of  loan  pay¬ 
ments  including  dates,  payment  number, 
payment,  principal,  interest,  and  loan  bal¬ 
ance.  Fully  amortized,  interest  only,  and  less 
than  interest  loans  with  payment  from  one  to 
fifty-two  per  year  are  calculated  in  sixteen¬ 
digit  precision.  Schedule  can  start  in  any  pe¬ 
riod  and  interest  totals  will  be  calculated  for 
each  year.  $50, 

Reston  Publishing  Co. 

Reston,  VA 

Micro  Learning  Systems.  A  new  line  of  soft¬ 
ware  tutorials  designed  with  a  self-instruc¬ 
tional,  hands-on  approach.  Included  in  the 
line  are:  IBM  Teach— an  interactive  tutorial 
for  learning  all  about  the  IBM;  Basic  Teach ; 
and  The  Teach  Program  for  VisiCalc— which 
teaches  the  novice  how  to  use  VisiCalc  and 
create  applications.  $75. 

ProWorks.  Provides  users  of  1-2-3  with  a 
ready  to  run  information  management  sys¬ 
tem.  The  first  three  products  are  titled  Execu¬ 
tive  Assistant,  Key  Business  Measures,  and 
Business  Forecasting .  Each  package  is  menu- 
driven,  requires  no  programming  experience, 
is  easily  customized,  and  uses  spreadsheet, 
graphics,  and  database  features  of  1-2-3. 
$100  each. 

Client  Strategist.  A  general-ledger  software 
package.  The  spreadsheet  interface  allows 
the  accountant  to  use  the  general  ledger  as  a 
source  document  for  VisiCalc,  SuperCalc , 
Multiplan,  1-2-3,  and  dBase  II  templates. 
Helps  create  professional  financial  state¬ 
ments,  cash  flow  forecasts,  financial  ratios, 
and  source  and  applications  of  funds.  $2,000. 

Howard  W.  Sams  &  Co.,  Inc. 
Indianapolis,  IN 

Financial  Planning  Mind  Toob.  Automati¬ 
cally  supply  your  Lotus  1-2-3,  Multiplan,  Vi¬ 
siCalc,  or  SuperCalc  spreadsheet  with  the 
correct  formulas  and  column  headings  to  in¬ 
stantly  calculate  present,  net  present,  and  fu¬ 
ture  values,  yields,  internal  and  financial 
management  rates  of  return,  and  basic  statis¬ 
tics.  Also  lets  you  do  break-even  analyses; 
depreciation  schedules;  accelerated  cost  re¬ 


covery  system  (ACRS);  variable-rate,  gradu¬ 
ate-payment,  graduate-payment  adjustable, 
and  wraparound  mortgages.  $79.95  each. 
Individual  Investment  Analysb  Mind  Toob. 
Helps  you  quickly  use  Multiplan  to  analyze 
possible/probable  capital  purchase  deci¬ 
sions,  investment  decisions,  and  estate-plan¬ 
ning  decisions  by  examining  an  array  of 
variable  conditions  surrounding  the  key  fac¬ 
tors  involved.  Also  includes  a  financial  re¬ 
cord  keeping  section  for  stocks,  bonds,  and 
real  estate.  $79.95. 

Magnum.  Convenient  and  powerful  data 
management  system  that  lets  you  create, 
store,  search  out,  sort,  edit,  and  display  rec¬ 
ords  easily.  Will  print  in  up  to  twenty-five 
stored  formats.  Four  categories  of  data  can 
be  entered,  including  alphanumeric,  nu¬ 
meric,  calculated  numeric,  and  date,  with 
data  checking  for  correct  entry.  Numeric  col¬ 
umn  totals  and  averages  can  be  calculated 
automatically,  while  editing  features  let  you 
enter  and  correct  your  entries  with  a  mini¬ 
mum  of  keystrokes.  If  hard-disk  storage  is 
used,  up  to  10,000  records  can  be  stored  per 
disk.  $79.95. 

Sapana  Micro  Software 

Pittsburg,  KS 

Mail-Track-1,  A  menu-driven  program  to 
handle  domestic  and  foreign  addresses  and 
print  form  letters.  Detects  duplicate  ad¬ 
dresses;  auto-repeat  entry;  maintains  the  list 
in  Zip  Code  order;  searches  and  sorts  on:  tel¬ 
ephone  number,  entry  code,  name,  company 
name,  city,  sheet,  state,  and  Zip  Code. 
$49.95. 

Soft-Cardfile-Index-I.  An  electronic  card- 
filing  system  to  keep  track  of  any  type  of 
published  information.  Each  entry  has  title  of 
publication,  author,  periodical  name,  code, 
date,  and  abstract  of  any  size.  $49.95. 
Mail-Track-II.  A  more  powerful  version  of 
Mail-Track-1  program.  Additional  features 
include  twenty-four  groups  in  entry  code, 
and  relation  while  selecting  on  entry  code, 
merge  two  files,  display /delete  files,  create 
back  up  file,  maintain  lists  of  groups,  varia¬ 
ble  length  fields,  and  courtesy  title.  $75. 
Write,  Mail  &  Merge.  A  three-in-one  menu- 
driven  package  to  write  simple  letters,  create 
and  maintain  mailing  lists,  and  print  person¬ 
alized  letters  by  merging  letters  with  the  se¬ 
lected  addresses  from  mailing  lists.  $95. 
MailStarOne.  A  comprehensive  mailing  list 
program  to  handle  large  mailing  lists,  up  to 
131,000  addresses.  Has  several  built-in  edit¬ 
ing  and  error-trap  routines,  room  for  more 
than  sixteen  data  items,  a  simple  letter  writer, 
and  a  program  to  print  form  letters  by  merg¬ 
ing  text  with  labels.  $195. 

Satori  Software 

Seattle,  WA 

Legal  Billing.  Efficient  billing  program  for 
law  firms.  Computer  screen  models  profes- 


SOftClIk  fag.  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


140 


m 


ogueHxhe  ultimate  challenge 
i  adventure  games,  gives  you 
on -stop  action  with  an  infi- 
ite  variety'  of  situations, 
here’s  no  memorizing  events 
ecause  Rogue's  never  the 
ime  game  twice.  These 


qualities  combined  make 
Rogue  addictive.  No  wonder 
it's  the  most  popular  game 
running  under  tile  UNIX* 

System,  Squires  M&p&ST' 

TMi  PC  with  t28K  erf  TjtiiiiK*!} 
Monochrome  or  color 'm&nitirc 


l:o  order  direct  cadi  toll  free, 
800-538  81  57  ext  973 
SOQ-672'3170  CXI,  973  tn  California 
or  check:  or  money'  order  lor 
CK.95.J(j|pi 

( add  S  2 .  i)0  apd  Jmn  d  I  )  to 

Arti field!  Ioteijtgfcfice  D esign 
P,C>  Box  3685 
Santa  Clara,  CA,  95055 


You  Haven't  Played  An  Adventure  Game 

Now  there's  a  game  that  can  keep  up  with  your  imagination 


nidesign 


‘  UNIX  \St  a  irademark  of  Sell  Labs,  Inc 


MS-DOS  j s  a  Irademark  of  Microsoil,  lr>c 


Business 


sional  time  slips.  Prints  statements,  aging  re¬ 
ports,  lawyer-time  reports  and  more. 
Handles  eighteen  lawyers,  400  clients,  and 
4,000  monthly  time  slips.  $350. 

Inventory  Manager.  A  comprehensive  inven¬ 
tory  control  program  designed  especially  for 
retailers,  wholesalers,  or  other  businesses  in¬ 
volved  with  merchandise  sales.  Up  to  thir¬ 
teen  major  categories  and  10,000  items  are 
managed  with  numerous  reports  available 
including  sorts  by  vendor,  gross  profit,  and 
items  sold.  Prints  purchase  orders  and  data 
worksheets.  $150. 

Bulk  Mailer.  A  complete  mailing  list  program 
for  the  serious  user.  Features  include  duplica¬ 
tion  elimination,  Zip  Code  and  alphabetical 
sorts,  multiple  search  parameters,  automatic 
entry  defaults,  ease  of  use,  and  large  capacity 
(up  to  5,400  names).  A  special  hard-disk  ver¬ 
sion  is  available  with  a  32,000-name  capac¬ 
ity.  $125. 

Savant  Corp. 

Houston,  TX 

The  Savant  Investor  Series.  A  set  of  inte¬ 
grated  programs  that  help  you  plan,  follow, 
and  analyze  your  investments.  Includes  tech¬ 
nical  charting,  fundamental  analysis,  and 
portfolio.  Requires  two  disk  drives,  color/ 
graphics  card,  128K.  $995. 

The  Technical  Investor.  Has  four  independent 
windows  that  can  plot  prices,  volumes,  point 
and  figure  charts,  relative  strength,  and 
more.  Copy  charts  on  printer.  Update  prices 
automatically  by  modem;  up  to  ten  years  of 
data  on  stocks  and  market  indices  available. 
Requires  color/graphics  card,  two  disk 
drives,  128K.  $395. 

The  Fundamental  Investor.  Fundamental 
analysis,  database,  and  communications 
programs.  Store  up  to  one  hundred  items  on 
up  to  1,700  securities.  Enter  data  by  modem. 
Screen,  sort,  calculate  financial  ratios.  Re¬ 
trieve  data  from  Dow  Jones  automatically, 
other  services  manually  using  the  terminal 
program  included.  Requires  two  disk  drives. 
128K.  $495. 

Sensor-based  Systems 
Charfield,  MN 

Metafile.  An  information  management  sys¬ 
tem  for  the  pc,  XT,  and  other  8088/86-based 
systems.  Creates  a  development  and  opera¬ 
tional  environment  that  provides  integrated 
facilities  for  high-level  programming,  word 
processing,  database  management,  model¬ 
ing,  report  generation,  communications, 
forms  generation,  menu  building,  and  data 
conversion.  $995. 

Silver  Soft 
Wichita,  KS 

SilverSoft.  A  set  of  management  software 


applications  for  personal  computers:  Silver- 
Budget— double  entry  budgeting  and  ac¬ 
counting;  SilverCalendar— financial  calcula¬ 
tions;  SilverFolio— personal  worth  and  in¬ 
ventory  plus  financial  calculations; 
SilverWriter— word  processing  and  mail  list 
management.  Available  for  CP/M,  CP/M- 
86,  and  PC-DOS  operating  systems.  $399. 

Simple  Soft,  Inc. 

Elk  Grove,  IL 

The  QuikCalc  Loan  Analyzer.  Provides  de¬ 
tailed  analyses  of  loan  and  mortgage  instru¬ 
ments.  Includes  complete  annual  and 
monthly  amortization  schedules,  with  op¬ 
tional  balloon  payments.  Also  performs  spe¬ 
cial  calculations  such  as  early  loan 
terminations,  summary  of  loan  proceeds, 
effective  interest  rates,  and  payment  between 
dates.  $99.95. 

The  QuickCalc  Real  Estate  Investor.  Ana¬ 
lyzes  both  individual  residence  and  income 
properties.  Both  models  address  a  number  of 
particular  real  estate  market  problems,  in¬ 
cluding  financing  structures,  expense  sched¬ 
ules,  cash  flows,  tax  benefits,  and  internal 
rate  of  return.  $129.95, 

SimSoft,  Inc. 

Port  Huron,  MI 

The  Payment  Scheduler.  Prints  amortization 
schedules  according  to  the  desired  payment. 
The  user  inputs  the  amount  of  the  payment 
that  is  wanted  along  with  the  interest  rate, 
principal  amount,  and  date  of  first  payment. 
Payment  Scheduler  then  prepares  a  concise 
easy  to  read  amortization  schedule.  $40. 

Smith  Micro  Software 
Sunset  Beach,  CA 

Stock  Portfolio  System.  2nd  edition.  An  in¬ 
vestment  portfolio  accounting,  record-keep¬ 
ing,  and  timing  control  system.  Investments 
covered  include  stocks,  bonds,  options, 
money  markets,  certificate  of  deposit,  and 
other  cash  accounts.  Security  values  entered 
either  manually  or  via  modem.  Terminal 
mode  provided  for  access  to  Dow  Jones. 
$185, 

Softrend,  A  Division  of  Information 
Solutions,  Inc. 

Charlottesville,  VA 

The  Fixed  Asset  Manager.  Provides  a  com¬ 
plete  depreciation  and  asset  cataloguing  tool 
for  business  and  personal  users.  The  system 
incorporates  many  unique  features  enabling 
flexible  reporting  and  asset  evaluation.  $150. 
The  Time  Scheduler.  A  comprehensive  time 
management  system  for  both  the  personal 
and  professional  user.  May  be  used  for  ap¬ 
pointment  scheduling,  project  management, 
maintenance  schedules,  legal  deadlines,  in¬ 
vestment  reminders,  and  more.  $99. 
Magazine/ Book  Reference.  An  abstracting 


program  that  allows  the  user  to  quickly  re¬ 
cord  and  retrieve  references  to  any  type  of 
information  in  magazines,  books,  proceed¬ 
ings,  journals,  and  so  on. 

Softstar,  Inc. 

Juno  Beach,  FL 

VisiCalc  Real  Estate  Templates.  Amortiza¬ 
tions,  personal  financial  statements,  ACRS 
depreciation,  income  property  investment 
analysis,  internal  rate  of  return,  mortgage 
loan  analysis.  A  versatile  problem-solving 
package  for  executives,  developers,  brokers, 
accountants,  attorneys,  and  real  estate  ana¬ 
lysts.  Combines  the  power  and  flexibility  of 
VisiCalc  with  the  simplicity  of  a  menu-driven 
program.  $129. 

Peachtree  Connection.  Can  unite  IBM's 
Peachtree  General  Ledger  to  a  variety  of 
spreadsheet  programs  (VisiCalc,  Multiplan, 
1-2-3).  Allows  the  user  to  do  forecasting, 
budgeting,  and  modeling  with  up  to  five 
years  of  accounting  data.  Preformatted 
worksheets  can  be  created  from  direct  access, 
without  having  to  rekey  all  the  data  into 
spreadsheet  program.  DOS  1.1,  $129.  DOS 
2.0,  $149. 

Business  Planning  Tool.  Creates  budgets  and 
detailed  business  plans  in  minutes  at  the  key¬ 
board.  Prints  reports  or  automatically  cre¬ 
ates  preformatted  worksheets  or  templates 
for  VisiCalc,  Multiplan,  or  1-2-3.  $195. 

Software  Arts 
Wellesley,  MA 

TKISolver.  The  first-ever  equation  processor 
for  personal  computers,  is  a  revolutionary 
tool  for  anyone  who  uses  equations,  formu¬ 
las,  and  modeling  for  analysis,  design,  plan¬ 
ning,  or  problem  solving.  Features  a  unique 
backsolving  ability,  iterative  and  list  solving, 
tables  and  graphs,  automatic  unit  conver¬ 
sion,  and  thirty-four  built-in  functions.  $299. 
TKISolver  Pack  for  Mechanical  Engineering. 
Designed  for  use  with  the  TKISolver  pro¬ 
gram,  includes  thirteen  models  each  com¬ 
plete  with  the  equations  and  values  necessary 
to  solve  problems  common  to  mechanical  en¬ 
gineers.  Topics  include  analysis  of  elastic 
beam  bending,  springs,  area  moment  of  iner¬ 
tia,  Mohr's  circle,  rotational  systems,  heat 
transfer,  fluid  flow,  and  hydraulics.  $100. 
TKISolver  Pack  for  Financial  Management. 
Designed  for  use  with  TKISolver,  includes 
thirteen  models  each  complete  with  the  equa¬ 
tions,  values,  and  tables  necessary  to  solve 
problems  common  to  financial  analysts  and 
managers.  Topics  include  compound  interest, 
net  present  value,  level  debt  service,  cost  of 
equity,  capital  analysis  of  financial  state¬ 
ments,  stock  option  pricing,  bond  swaps, 
convertible  debts,  and  bond-refunding  deci¬ 
sions.  $100. 

Software  Connections,  Inc. 

Santa  Clara,  CA 

LAN:DataStore.  Multiuser  database  man- 


B  u  s 


!  N  t  S  5 


agement  package  with  screen-oriented 
forms  creation/forms  retrieval  program. 
Specifically  designed  to  provide;  (1 )  concur¬ 
rent  access  protection  for  multicomputer  lo¬ 
cal  area  networks,  (2)  data  access  security  for 
different  levels  of  users,  and  (3)  large  data  ca¬ 
pacity  (16M/ database).  $645  to  $1,945. 

Software  Publishing  Corp. 

Mountain  View,  CA 
PFS:  File.  Allows  the  user  to  record,  file,  re¬ 
trieve,  and  summarize  information,  $140. 
PF$:Report,  Sorts,  calculates,  formats,  and 
prints  presentation-quality  reports  from  in¬ 
formation  in  files  created  with  PFS:Fite.  To¬ 
tals,  subtotals,  averages,  subaverages, 
counts,  and  subcounts  can  be  printed  on  ev¬ 
ery  column,  $125. 

PF5  Solutions.  Ready-made  applications  of 
PFS  software  for  specific  record-keeping 
tasks.  With  each  PFS  Solutions ,  you  get  a 
complete  form  design  and  predefined  reports 
that  are  used  with  PFS: File  and  PFS: Report, 
Twelve  disks  with  guides,  $20  each. 

Software  Solutions,  Inc, 

Milford,  CT 

DOSease .  User-friendly  interface  applies  a 


menu-driven  selection  process  to  command 
execution,  bringing  enhanced  usability  to  the 
full  power  of  DOS.  Easy  access  to  all  system 
capabilities.  $60, 

Medease.  Comprehensive  office  administra¬ 
tion  program  to  serve  a  medical  practice.  Re¬ 
quires  no  knowledge  of  programming. 
Automates  the  processing  of  all  patient  and 
practice  information  from  billing  and  insur¬ 
ance  claims  to  reporting  clinical  information, 
$995. 

Wordease.  Full-function  word  processor, 
part  of  the  Dataease  integrated  system. 
Stands  alone  or  interfaces  with  other  applica¬ 
tions.  Features  a  comprehensive  set  of  editing 
options,  menus,  and  function  keys.  Supports 
a  variety  of  printers,  $295, 

Dataease ,  Relational  database  management 
system  uses  menus  and  function  keys.  Builds 
application  quickly  and  simply  without  pro¬ 
gramming.  Easy  form  definition,  data  entry, 
plus  flexible  reporting  and  record  updating 
capability.  $595. 

Software  Technology  for 
Computers,  Inc. 

Newton,  MA 

IFO.  Employs  the  use  of  CAPASS  (Cross 
Tabbing  Routine)  algorithm  and  Soundex  in¬ 
telligence  to  find  phonetically  information 
that  you  can't  spell  or  pronounce.  Features 


global  editing,  calculated  fields,  screen  build¬ 
ing  routines,  duplicate  options,  five-level 
cross  tab  search  capability,  quick-formatted 
prints,  report  generator  and  sort  files.  $125, 
The  Mailing  List .  Maintains  a  complete  mail¬ 
ing  list  and  generates  a  telephone  listing 
(sorted  by  last  name).  The  telephone  listing 
includes  last  name  (company  name),  first 
name,  phone  number,  and  record  number. 
The  Mailing  List  database  can  be  added  to, 
changed  (on-screen),  deleted,  sorted, 
searched,  and  reformatted.  Accommodates 
nine-digit  Zip  Codes  for  use  outside  the 
U.S.A.  Up  to  1,500  labels  can  be  stored  on  a 
single  disk.  $75. 

Solutions,  Inc, 

Montpelier,  VT 

VIS/ BRIDGE/ D].  Transmits  data  from  Dow 
Jones  News/Retrieval  directly  into  a  VisiCalc 
spreadsheet,  $295. 

Source  Telecomputing  Corp. 

McLean,  VA 

The  Source.  An  on-line  information  and 
communication  service  for  personal  com¬ 
puter  owners.  Provides  electronic  mail,  bul¬ 
letin  board,  conferencing,  UPI  news,  stock 
and  bond  quotes,  financial  news,  electronic 
shopping,  airline  schedules,  movie  reviews, 
hotel  and  restaurant  guides.  Membership, 


INTRODUCING 


PC  AIRFLO 


Protect  your  PC  from  heat  deterioration. 

PC  AIRFLO  allows  only  clean  filtered  air  into 
your  Personal  Computer;  creating  a  constant 
stream  of  cooling  air  over  the  fCst  46  c.f.m. 

The  existing  fan  is  in  the  power  supply  only, 

PC  AIRFLO  prevents  dust  and  smoke  from 
coming  in  through  any  of  the  other  openings. 

The  majority  of  computer  breakdowns  are 
caused  by  heat  and  dust. 

You  need  PC  AIRFLO  for  your  computers  sake. 

No  changes  in  the  PC  required , 

Specify  110  or  220  volt  A/C 

One  year  warrantee, 

price 

$8794  (UPS) 

$  1 10.00  u,s, currency  (foreign  orders  via  airmail) 
(Extra  filters  available  in  pkgs,  of  10  for  S5.00) 


® 


FOR 


YOUR  IBM-PC8.XT 


SEND  CHECK. 

ABC  COMPUTER  PERIPHERALS,  INC 

Engineering  far  efficiency  Ik  reliability 

77  Columbia  Street 
New  York,  New  York  10002 

IBM  PC  »s  a  trademark  of  International  Business  Machines  Corporation 


for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


143 


Get  it  all..* 


COMMUNICATIONS 

•  ASCII/EBCDIC 

•  Manual/Automatic  dialup 
and  logon 

•  Automatic  search  for 
available  line/port 

•  File  transmityreceive  and 
data  capture 

•  Single-key  host  selection 

•  Easy  menu-driven  port 
definition 

•  Backwards  scrollable 
terminal 

•  XMODEM  protocol  support 

•  APL  support 

•  User  defineable  macros 


/ 


DATA  MANAGEMENT 

•  Menu-driven  file  and  data 
selection 

•  Plain  English  file  and 
variable  names 

•  Up  to  400  time-series 
variables  per  file 

•  Up  to  208  periods  and  125 
categories  per  variable 

•  Data  import/export 

•  Easy  file  subsetting 

•  Full  screen  data  editor 
with  2-dimensional 
scrolling  and  global 
edit/statistical  commands 


GRAPHICS 

•  Pie,  bar,  line,  area-fill,  and 
scatter  charts 

•  1  or  2  charts  per  screen 

•  Easy  interactive  chart 
creation 

•  Fast  chart  display 

•  Direct  text  entry  into  any 
chart 

•  Display  memo  and  graph 
in  same  screen 

•  Hardcopy  printout  with 
one  keypress 

•  Automatic  least  squares 
data  projection 

•  Automatic  scaling 

•  Alternate  Y-axis  for  trend 
analysis 


To  put  it  simply,  with  PCDI  you  can  quickly  and  easily  dial  in  to  any 
mainframe  computers,  information  services,  and  bulletin  boards  and  retrieve 
the  data  you  want,  "four  retrieved  numbers  can  then  be  manipulated,  swiftly 
graphed  (in  a  variety  of  formats  and  colors),  and  passed  to  your  favorite 
spreadsheet  or  custom  programs,  all  in  a  matter  of  seconds. 

Absolutely, the  finest. 

Several  Fortune  500  corporations  have  already  installed  PCDI  as  the  base 
for  their  entire,  companywide  “electronic  office”  applications.  Without  except 
tion,  PCDI  is  the  most  comprehensive  and  easiest-to-use  communications 
package  available  for  the  IBM  PC.  Its  data  manager  offers  complete  menu- 
driven  file  and  data  management  in  plain  English.  PCDI’s  presentation  quality 
graphics  have  more  interactive  features  than  any  other  graphics  program 
in  its  class.  And  PCDI  can  be  quickly  expanded  by  integrating  your  favorite 
programs  directly  into  it.  It  is  simply  the  easiest  way  to  retrieve,  display,  and 
analyze  your  data. 


with  PCDI. 


PCDI 

Personal  Computer  Data  Interface 

•  Telecommunications 

•  Color  Graphics 

•  Data  Management 

•  User  expandable 

•  Fully  integrated 

•  Online  “HELP” 

•  Easy  to  read  manual 

•  Program  updates  available 

•  Corporate  license  available 

*250 


PCDI  provides  all  the  tools  you  need  to  perform  easy  numerical  data 
analysis.  Stock  quotes,  economic  and  industry  indicators,  prodorma  financial 
statements ...  all  those  numbers  you’ve  laboriously  compiled  and  keyed  in  make 
interesting  reading  with  PCDPs  interactive  graphics.  And  PCDPs  communica- 
tions  and  data  management  features  insure  that  you  won’t  be  doing  the 
keypunching  the  next  time  around.  Make  us  prove  it.  Visit  your  local  IBM 
dealer  for  a  demonstration  or  contact  us  for  our  free  color  information  kit. 

System  Requirements:  IBM  PC  or  PC-XT  •  256K  main  memory 

•  Color  graphics  adaptor  •  2  double  sided  diskette  drives  or  hard  disk 

•  Hayes  Smartmodem  (300/1200)  •  Epson  compatible  printer 


Applied  MicroSystems,  Inc. 

P.O.  Box  832 
Roswell,  Georgia  30077 
(404)  475-0832  (404)  371-0832 


Business 


$100  one-time  fee.  Hourly  fees,  $7.75  to 
$20.75. 

Spectrum  Software 
Sunnyvale,  CA 

Accounts  Receivable .  An  invoicing  and  re¬ 
ceivables  management  system.  Provides  on¬ 
screen  invoice  data-entry  form  for  creating 
detailed  invoices  and  a  journal  for  manually 
recording  invoices,  payments,  and  credits. 
$150. 

General  Ledger  A  double-entry  bookkeeping 
system.  Provides  an  on-screen  transaction 
journal,  allowing  500  transactions  per 
month.  The  system  provides  500  user- 
defined  accounts  spread  over  sixteen  bal¬ 
ance-sheet  categories.  $150. 

Math  Series.  A  menu-driven  series  of  pro¬ 
grams  including  numerical  analysis,  statisti¬ 
cal  analysis  matrix,  and  three-dimensional 
surface  plotter.  Employs  hi-res  graphics  and 
hard  copy  for  presentation  of  results.  $50. 

SSR  Corporation 

Rochester,  NY 

Infotory.  A  standalone  inventory  manage¬ 
ment  system  that  can  accommodate  5,000  to 
50,000  inventory  items  depending  on  the  sys¬ 
tem  configuration.  Any  report  is  a  data  man¬ 
agement  subsystem  built  into  Infotory  that 
allows  the  user  to  customize  reports  based  on 
the  thirty-six  predefined  fields  of  information 
provided  for  each  inventory  item.  Floppy, 
$425.  Hard,  $575. 

Omnifile.  Menu-driven  and  easy  to  use,  like 
simple  file  managers,  but  is  flexible  and  pow¬ 
erful  enough  to  be  truly  useful  in  a  business 
and  professional  environment,  without  re¬ 
quiring  any  programming.  $425. 

Star  Software  Systems 
Torrance,  CA 

The  Accounting  Partner  A  low-cost  ac¬ 
counting  system  that  includes  a  general 
ledger,  accounts  receivable,  invoicing,  ac¬ 
counts  payable,  purchase  orders,  and  pay¬ 
roll.  For  the  pc  or  XT.  $395. 

Starside  Engineering 
Rochester,  NY 

ANOVA/Plus.  An  analysis  of  variance  util¬ 
ity — a  statistical  tool  for  comparing  the  vari¬ 
ances  of  two  or  more  populations.  Analyzes 
up  to  five  factors.  Data  file  create /edit  capa¬ 
bility  included,  as  is  Scheffe's  test  of  individ¬ 
ual  mean  levels.  In  machine  code  and  very 
fast.  $69.95. 

State  of  the  Art,  Inc. 

Costa  Mesa,  CA 

Billing  System.  Can  turn  the  records  of  time 
invested  and  expenses  incurred  into  detailed 


bills  to  your  clients,  including  charges  and 
expenses  exactly  as  you  want  your  client 
billed.  Also  tracks  client  billings  and  proc¬ 
esses  receipts.  Other  aspects  are  a  detailed 
aged-open  bill  report  and  month-end  sum¬ 
mary.  Allows  for  multiple  levels  of  employ¬ 
ees  and  billable  employee  rates  storing 
individual  employee  records  that  may  be 
analyzed.  $395  to  $595. 

Budget  &  Financial  Reporting.  Expands  gen¬ 
eral  ledger  record-keeping  to  include  budget 
and  history  information.  Provides  for  divi¬ 
sional,  departmental,  budgetary,  and  com¬ 
parative  reporting  along  with  automatic 
posting  of  recurring  journal  entries  and 
produces  an  automatic  audit  trail  of  all  activ¬ 
ity  to  date.  $395  to  $595. 

Inventory  Control  Combines  sophisticated 
database  management  and  reporting  capabi¬ 
lities.  Allows  for  minimum/maximum  quan¬ 
tity,  economic  order  quantities,  and 
maintains  purchase  order  and  on-hand  data. 
Multiple  costing  methods  are  available  con¬ 
currently  including  average,  last  receipt 
(LIFO),  and  original  cost  (FIFO).  The  auto¬ 
matic  generating  of  count  sheets  with  loca¬ 
tion  and  costing  information  also  are 
provided.  $395  to  $595. 

Sales  Invoicing.  Invoice  entry  is  made  faster 
by  accessing  address  and  terms  information 
from  the  customer  file.  Billing  instructions 
and  pricing  data  may  be  retrieved  instantly 
from  stored  information.  Comprehensive 
sales  journal  reporting  includes  daily  invoice 
recaps,  gross  profit  analysis,  sales  commis¬ 
sion  reporting,  and  monthly  profitability  re¬ 
porting  by  invoice,  salesperson,  and 
customer.  $395  to  $595. 

Statistical  Computing  Consultants 
Burke,  VA 

Survtab.  Survey  analysis  software.  Tabulates 
data  from  survey  questionnaires.  $180. 

Stone  and  Associates 
La  Jolla,  CA 

CataList.  Prepares  fully  compatible,  inter¬ 
face  disks  for  any  of  the  thirteen  most  popu¬ 
lar  word  processors.  Allows  users  to  merge 
addresses  with  customized  form  letters 
created  by  the  user's  word  processing  system. 
$195. 

Sunward  Systems,  Inc. 

Chicago,  IL 

Fulfillment  I.  A  subscription  fulfillment,  ac¬ 
counting  and  list  maintenance  program 
which  is  also  adaptable  to  mail  continuity 
programs,  single-product  mail  sales,  and 
fund  raising.  $75. 

Sunmail.  A  completely  menu-driven  mailing 
list  maintenance  program  with  fields  for 
name  and  business  address,  address,  and 
nine-digit  Zip  Code,  two  dates,  two  tele¬ 
phone  numbers  with  area  code,  and  foreign 
address.  Unlimited  number  of  codes  availa¬ 


ble  for  each  record.  Output  by  mailing  la¬ 
bels,  directories,  document  labels,  and  form 
letters.  All  output  can  be  selected  on  the  basis 
of  Zip  Codes,  dates,  and  selection  codes  with 
any  information  printed  or  suppressed.  Out¬ 
put  is  in  Zip  Code  or  alphabetical  order.  $99. 

Superex  International  Marketing 

Yonkers,  NY 

Superex  Retailer.  Issues  sales  receipts  and  in¬ 
voices,  updates  inventory  (2,000  items  on 
floppy,  20,000  on  hard  disk),  tracks  backor¬ 
ders  and  receivables,  creates  receiving  re¬ 
ports,  maintains  a  customer  mailing  list, 
tracks  sales  by  item  and  salesperson  and  con¬ 
tains  a  powerful  report  generator.  $300. 

SuperSoft,  Inc. 

Champaign,  IL 

VoiceDrive.  A  complete  software  interface 
that  stands  between  the  voice  recognition 
hardware  and  application  software.  Availa¬ 
ble  for  use  with  Scratchpad,  SuperSoft's 
spreadsheet  program.  Allows  the  user  to  en¬ 
ter  and  manipulate  data  on  the  screen  by 
voice  command.  Keyboard  and  speech  com¬ 
mands  are  interchangeable.  Requires  128K 
and  Tecmar  Voice  Recognition  Board. 
Scratchpad  with  VoiceDrive ,  $495.  With  Tec- 
mar  board  also  included,  $995. 

ScratchPad.  Spreadsheet  program  featuring 
virtual  memory,  which  allows  disk  space  to 
be  used  as  backup  for  RAM.  Scratchpad's 
rows  and  columns  are  flexible  to  999  in  either 
direction.  Window  splitting  is  unlimited. 
Consolidation  and  merge  functions  are  in¬ 
cluded,  allowing  similar  spreadsheets  to  be 
merged  and  added  or  averaged  together, 
$295. 

Personal  Data  Base.  An  easy  to  use  database 
program  that  allows  the  user  to  keep  track  of 
various  business  and  personal  information. 
The  user  controls  the  length  and  time  of  re¬ 
cords  in  file,  number  of  characters  per  field 
(maximum  fifty),  and  number  of  fields  per  re¬ 
cord  (maximum  twenty).  Records  can  be 
added  to  established  files,  deleted,  or  up¬ 
dated.  Report  columns  can  be  added  or 
averaged.  Menus  and  screen  prompts  are  de¬ 
signed  with  ease  of  use  in  mind.  Requires 
IBM  or  Epson  printer.  $125. 

Sydney  Development  Corp. 

Vancouver,  British  Columbia 
Real  Estate  Analysis  System.  A  complete 
package  of  interrelated  modules  designed  to 
help  professionals  and  investors  address  a 
mix  of  applications.  All  modules  may  be  pur¬ 
chased  separately.  Modules  include  Contem¬ 
porary  Loan  Plans,  $155;  Mortgage  Portfolio 
Management,  $135;  Development  Pro 
Forma,  $350;  Development  Quick  Analysis, 
$400;  Property  Cash  Flow  and  Yield  Analy¬ 
sis,  $500;  and  Property  Income  and  Expense 
Analysis,  $500. 

Real  Estate  Office  System.  A  comprehensive 


146 


softcilk 


Business 


tool  designed  to  streamline  the  commercial 
and  residential  real  estate  offices.  Designed 
with  the  Hrst-user  in  mind,  the  system  con¬ 
sists  of  four  separate  but  fully  integrated 
modules:  Sales  Management,  5850;  Listings 
Management,  S650;  General  Accounting, 
$600;  and  Word  Processing,  £400. 

Stax/ M  A  portfolio-management  system 
designed  for  the  individual  or  small  invest¬ 
ment  group,  It  allows  you  to  keep  track  of 
portfolios  of  securities.  These  may  be  stocks, 
bonds,  options,  or  whatever  securities  you 
choose  to  invest  your  money  in.  $225, 
5tox/C.  A  technical-analysis  program  de¬ 
signed  for  private  investors,  brokers,  profes¬ 
sional  technical  analysts,  and  financial 
analysts.  Up  to  sixteen  securities  can  be 
tracked  on  a  daily  basis  for  over  one  year. 
Outputs  include  price  charts,  relative 
strength  indexes,  moving  averages, 
differences  between  moving  averages,  filter 
and  trends,  on-volume  volumes,  and  mo- 
men  turns.  $175. 

SysteMathica 
Pittsburgh,  PA 

PC-MILP.  A  general  purpose,  large-scale  lin¬ 
ear  programming  package.  With  state-of- 
the-art  compact  database  generator  for 
sparse  matrices  and  structured  problems. 
Mixed  integer,  all  integer  branch  and  bound 
capability,  and  8087  math  coprocessor  op¬ 
tions  available.  $4°5. 

Systems  Design  Lab 
Redortdo  Beach,  CA 
Pro  Football  (NFL)  The  Gold  Edition.  Pro 
football  prediction  system  designed  for  the 
serious  handicapper.  The  program  has  pro¬ 
duced  excellent  results  against  Las  Vegas  line 
and  comes  complete  with  a  system  disk,  data 
disk,  and  more  than  one  hundred  pages  of 
documen tatio n,  $1 99 * 50 . 

Systems  Plus,  Inc. 

Palo  Alto,  CA 

The  Landlord.  Handles  all  the  paperwork 
and  record-keeping  functions  for  any  type  of 
income  rental  property.  Can  maintain  multi¬ 
ple  owners  and  multiple  rental  units  and 
types*  Prints  a  variety  of  financial  and  man¬ 
agement  reports,  checks,  and  mailing  labels. 
$595. 

Books /  The  Electric  Ledger  Appears  on¬ 
screen  as  a  typical  ledger  page.  Recurring  en¬ 
tries  and  enhanced  budgeting  modules.  $345. 
Client  Manager.  A  CPA  writeup  package.  Us¬ 
ers  have  flexibility  in  setup  and  numbering  of 
accounts  and  journals.  Time  and  billing 
available.  Requires  hard  disk.  $1,400. 
Medical  Manager  Front  office  financial  and 
clinical  medical  management  software.  Has  a 
built-in  report  generator  that  allows  un- 


binded  formatting  of  insurance  forms  and  cli-  , 
ent  bills.  From  $4,000, 

Tarrtec  Enterprises 
Commack,  NY 

Name  Directory  Database  program  capable 
of  storing  2,000  records  on  a  single  disk*  Pro 
vides  mailing  labels,  record  lists  according  to 
user-define  catalog  codes:  geographically  by 
area  codes,  states,  Zip  Codes,  or  partial  Zip 
Codes.  $33, 

Tax  Man,  Inc. 

Huntsville,  AL 

Taxn\an-84.  With  VisiCak/SuperCak,  pre-  I 


pares  form  1040,  This  template  series  in¬ 
cludes  all  forms  and  schedules  in  IRS- 
approved  printable  format*  The  logic  pro¬ 
vided  will  identify  deductions  that  exceed 
statistical  standards,  compare  this  years  data 
and  tax  results  with  last  year's,  and  flag  forms 
which  change  because  of  last 'minute  changes 
in  your  input.  $95, 

Taxealc,  Inc. 

Fort  Worth,  TX 

Taxcak.  A  tax-planning  template  to  be  used 
in  conjunction  with  VisiCak,  SuperCak , 
1-2-3 ,  or  Multipkm.  Allows  the  computation 
of  income  tax  variables  and  selects  the  lowest 


Pascal  and  C  Programmers 

Blaise  Computing  s  productivity  tools  allow  Pascal  and  C  programmers 
to  develop  reliable  software  taking  full  advantage  of  the  capabilities  of 
the  IBM  PC  and  XT.  Support  for  Microsoft  and  IBM  Pascal,  and  Micro¬ 
soft  (Lattice!  C  is  provided.  Because  ail  routines  are  carefully  con¬ 
structed  in  the  language  for  which  they  were  designed,  the  tools  pro- 
vide  an  excellent  model.  Pascal  procedure  support  is  implemented  as 
separately  compiled  units,  and  the  C  functions  are  delivered  as  part  of 
a  function  library.  Now  you  can  write  your  applications  rapidly  in  the 
two  most  powerful  languages  available  for  Lhe  IBM  PC,  All  packages 
come  with  a  comprehensive  Reference  Manual,  extensive  examples  and 
sample  programs. 


▼ 

TOOLS 


All  Source  Code  is  included 


Tola!  string  capability,  complete  screen  access,  keyboard  handlings  graphics  interface, 
access  to  all  BIOS  functions,  and  much  more  are  provided  m  over  JO  routines,  AH  routines 
are  carefully  crafted  and  documented  to  give  you  the  in  forma  Uon  and  flexibility  you  need 
A  general  Macro  Assembler  BIOS  gale  allows  you  lo  access  any  BIOS  function  from  Pascal 
or  C.  and  demonstrates  how  to  interlace  assembly  language  routines.  Everyone  using  Pas- 
cal  or  C  should  have  TOOLS,  User  Manual  only.  $10, 


TOOLS  2 


All  Source  Code  is  included 


The  power  of  DOS  2  0  is supported  using  high  level  Pascal  procedures  or  C  functions 
Program  chaining  DOS  internal  and  external  command  execution,  use  of  all  available 
rpept'pry  extended  file  handling,  and  other  utilities  are  tome  of  the  features  provided  A 
general  DOS  gale  allows  you  to  access  any  DOS  function  from  Pascal  or  C  User  Manual 
only  $30 


VIEW  MANAGER 


Source  Code  available 


VIEW  MANAGER  is  a  screen  support  system  of  a  mainframe  for  the  [BM  Personal  Com¬ 
puter.  VIEW  MANAGER  is  a  menu  driven,  screen  oriented  system  allowing  you  to  develop 
user  oriented  screen  interfaces  Screens  are  constructed  with  a  true  Screen  Painter  sup¬ 
porting  any  attribute  or  color,  and  the  screens  are  stored  efficiently  In  a  Screen  Database 
Database  utilities  allow  you  lo  copy  screens  to  stand-alone  da  I  abases  and  to  archive 
screens.  VIEW/UBRARY  supports  acxess  to  screens  and  true  block  mode  data  capture  and 
display  Irom  application  programs.  Available  soon  wilt  be  VfEW/UBRARY  for  Microsoft 
(Lattice!  C  The  source  to  The  procedure  library  Is  available  for  an  additional  SI 50  00 
Demonstration  diskette  and  User  Manual  S3 5 

^  VIEW  MANAGER,  TOOLS  and  TOOLS  2  run  on  the  IBM  Personal  Com 
puter  and  XT.  TOOLS  2  requires  DOS  2*0;  TOOLS  and  VIEW  MAN¬ 
AGER  can  be  used  with  any  version  of  DOS  Specify  if  you  wish  Pascal 
(Microsoft  and  IBMi  or  Microsoft  (Lattice)  C  versions.  Blaise  Com¬ 
puting  can  also  provide  you  with  the  Microsoft  Pascal  and  C  compilers 
with  qualified  support.  Cal!  or  write  for  details. 

|l-  BLAISE 

COIS^JTING 
INC 


TOOLS 

1  25.00 

TOOLS  2 

1  00.00 

VIEW  MANAGER 

275  00 

VIEW  MANAGER  |wi(h  L  Ibrary  Sou  reel 

00 

1609  AlEgti  Street 

MS- Pascal  Compiler 

135  00 

Berkeley  CA  V47Q2 

M icrosol  i  C  Cu m pi lu r 

450  00 

I4l5p524-6d0i 

mn 


for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


147 


PALANTIR"  WORD  PROCESSING 

DON’T  HAVE  TO  BEEF  UP  OUR  GUARANTEE 
WITH  A  LOT  OF  BULL 


Other  software  companies  give 
you  disclaimers.  Palanrir  gives  you  a 
real  guarantee;  Palanrir  backs  its  soft¬ 
ware  with  90  days  of  free  phone  sup¬ 
port  via  a  toll-free  number.  When  you 
call,  we  won’t  tell  you  to  ask  your 
dealer  or  read  your  manual;  we3ll 
answer  your  question,  free  of  charge. 
If  wc  can’t  solve  your  problem,  we’ll 
replace  your  Palanrir  Software  with 
any  competitive  software  of  compar¬ 
able  value. 


We  couldn’t  make  an  offer  like 
this  if  we  weren’t  confident  about 
Palantir  word  processing.  It’s  easy  to 
learn,  easy  to  use,  easy  to  live  with. 

Palantir  word- processing  soft¬ 
ware  is  designed  for  microcomputers. 
Yet  it  gives  you  all  the  features  of  a 
dedicated  word  processor.  You 
won’t  find  a  better  system  on  the 
marker  today. 

To  fmd  out  more  about  Palantir 
software,  mark  the  reader- service  card 


in  this  issue  or  call,  toll-free: 
1-800-368-3797.  In  Texas,  call 
713-520-8221. 

We’ll  respond  with  detailed 
information  on  Palantir  software  and 
a  free  “No  Bull” 
button.  A  closer  look 
will  convince  you 
that  we’re  not  just 
one  of  the  herd. 

And  that’s  no  butt. 


Palantir  Software  3400  Montrose  Blvd,  Suite  718  Houston,  Texas  77006 
l"  Palanrir  is  a  trademark  of  Pahncir,  Ijk. 


Business 


tax.  Input  lines  follow  the  IRS  forms  and  the 
calculations  are  tracked  to  IRS-form  line 
numbers.  $125. 

TCI  Software 
Flourtown,  PA 

Mailtrak.  Stores  up  to  2,400  names  on  a 
floppy  disk,  generates  telephone  directories, 
labels  (up  to  four  across)  with  up  to  nine 
lines,  master  list,  and  files  for  WordStar  or 
Easy  Writer  in  reports.  Instant  locator  finds 
information  by  last  name,  company,  street 
address,  city,  state,  or  Zip  Code  within  sec¬ 
onds.  Manual,  $15.  Disk  and  manual,  $65. 

TCS  Software,  Inc. 

Houston,  TX 

Client  Ledger  System.  A  multicompany  gen¬ 
eral  ledger  system  designed  specifically  for 
public  accounting  firms  and  others  who  pro¬ 
vide  accounting  services  for  small  businesses. 
Highlights  include  the  accelerated  cost  recov¬ 
ery  depreciation  schedule,  a  fully  integrated 
passive  payroll,  ledger  consolidation,  941 
worksheets,  W-2s,  1099s,  and  the  generation 
of  more  than  fifty  reports.  Price  to  the  end 
user  is  determined  by  deal  installation,  train¬ 
ing,  and  support. 

QLabel.  Generates  labels  from  information 
stored  in  Total  Accounting  System  data  files. 
The  label  format  is  completely  user  defined, 
allowing  the  flexibility  to  create  labels  in  the 
exact  format  required.  Can  also  be  used  to 
prepare  "labels"  on  media  other  than  stand¬ 
ard  labels.  Price  to  the  end  user  is  determined 
by  dealer  installation,  training,  and  support. 
QWord.  A  word  processing  package  that 
offers  advanced  editing  and  printing  features 
such  as  four-function  integer  math,  true  pro¬ 
portional  printing,  and  full  use  of  function 
keys.  QWord  interfaces  with  the  Total  Ac¬ 
counting  System  data  files.  This  interface  al¬ 
lows  customized  mailings,  letters,  reports, 
and  other  documents.  Price  to  the  end  user  is 
determined  by  dealer  installation,  training, 
and  support. 

Simple.  A  database  management  system  that 
uses  Total  Accounting  System  data  files  to 
their  fullest  advantage.  The  user  can  generate 
customized  reports;  query,  display,  enter  or 
delete  data  from  both  Total  Accounting  Sys¬ 
tem  data  files,  and  separate  files  created  in 
Simple .  Special  features  include  customized 
reports  and  queries,  English-sentence  com¬ 
mands,  subtotals  and  totals  of  fields  or  report 
columns,  and  cross-referencing  and  multiple- 
sort  indexing.  Price  to  the  end  user  is  deter¬ 
mined  by  dealer  installation,  training,  and 
support. 

Tecmar,  Inc. 

Solon,  OH 

Elan.  Office  communications  systems  pro¬ 


vides  the  link  between  people,  machine,  and 
telephones.  Performs  the  conversion  of  voice 
signals  to  data  signals,  and  back  again.  The 
ability  to  digitize  speech,  then  reconstruct 
speech  from  stored  data  is  central  to  many  of 
the  voice,  mail,  message,  and  telephone-re¬ 
lated  functions  of  Elan.  $1,695. 

TexaSoft 
Dallas,  TX 

CALL  (Computer  Assisted  Learning  Lan¬ 
guage).  Aimed  at  the  educational  and  indus¬ 
trial  training  market.  Features  an  authoring 
system  (Create)  which  allows  instructors 
with  little  computer  knowledge  to  create  tu¬ 
torials,  electronic  “training  manuals,"  and 
computer  monitored  texts.  The  CALL  lan¬ 
guage  takes  advantage  of  many  of  the  fea¬ 
tures  of  the  pc  such  as  the  use  of  sound,  color, 
and  character  graphics.  Also  contains  an  ex¬ 
tensive  editor,  a  grading  program,  and  other 
useful  utility  programs.  $450. 

Electronic  File  Cabinet.  Creates  a  “file  folder" 
in  which  you  can  place  information  on  the 
"tab"  (keywords)  and  then  store  up  to  200 
lines  of  free  formatted  text  “inside"  the  folder. 
PC  File  will  store  as  many  "file  folders"  (rec¬ 
ords)  as  your  disk  space  will  allow  and  will 
retrieve  these  records  by  number,  keyword, 
or  multiple  keyword  (Boolean)  searches. 
$75. 

The  TexaSoft  Combo  Pac.  An  integrated  sys¬ 
tem  of  business  programs.  Separately,  these 
three  programs  will  meet  a  wide  variety  of 
business  needs.  However,  the  interrelation¬ 
ship  among  the  three  programs  make  each 
even  more  powerful.  Each  of  the  three  pro¬ 
grams  creates  standard  ASCII  files.  These 
files  can  then  be  used  by  the  other  programs. 
Tables  created  in  The  Thinker  can  be  saved  in 
a  file  on  disk.  PC  File  provides  a  method  of 
storing  textual  information  along  with  asso¬ 
ciated  keywords  for  easy  storage  and  re¬ 
trieval.  Records  of  textual  information 
entered  into  PC  File  can  be  output  to  an 
ASCII  file.  VersaText  can  then  be  used  to 
edit  this  file  or  include  it  into  word  processing 
documents.  Users  with  hard  disks  can  place 
all  three  programs  on  the  same  disk  for  in¬ 
creased  integration.  $325. 

Time  Accountant 
Palo  Alto,  CA 

Time  Accountant.  A  flexible  timekeeping 
and  billing  tool.  Tracks  up  to  two  dozen  pro¬ 
fessionals,  maintains  existing  codes,  adjusts 
rates  or  charges,  bills  at  any  time,  and  uses 
your  own  forms.  Requires  128K  RAM,  DOS 
1.1.,  two  320K  disk  drives,  hi-res  monitor, 
and  printer.  $320. 

T /Maker  Company 

Mountain  View,  CA 
T/ Maker  III.  An  integrated  program  offering 
word  processing,  spreadsheet,  data  manage¬ 
ment,  file  management,  and  graphics  func¬ 


tions.  Every  command  and  function  is 
directly  accessible  and  works  on  every  file.  It 
has  a  complete  word  processor  with  header 
and  footer  capability  and  automatic  footnote 
placement.  A  word  processing-based  spread¬ 
sheet  reduces  spreadsheet  setup  time  and 
complexity.  The  data  management  functions 
perform  sorting,  tallying,  including  and  ex¬ 
cluding  tasks.  $275. 

Universal  Data  Products 
Buffalo,  NY 

UDRI  Data  Base  Manager  System.  A  menu- 
driven  package  of  programs  designed  to  al¬ 
low  the  operator  the  ability  to  create  files, 
add,  change,  and  delete  information  at  any 
time;  organize  the  file  in  a  variety  of  ways; 
and  print  a  multitude  of  reports  and  labels. 
$199. 

User-Friendly  Software,  Inc. 

Melville,  NY 

The  Apartment  House  Manager.  A  complete 
system  designed  for  managers  of  apartment 
buildings.  The  manager  can  determine  the 
status  of  apartments,  keep  a  general  journal 
of  all  income  and  expenses,  and  review  a 
monthly  profit  and  loss  statement.  $395. 

Walonick  Associates,  Inc. 
Minneapolis,  MN 

StatPac.  A  complete  data  manager  and  sta¬ 
tistical  analysis  package  with  features  similar 
to  mainframe  SPSS.  Includes  batch  process¬ 
ing,  data  transformation  procedures,  and  a 
complete  range  of  statistical  procedures. 
Handles  5,000  cases  with  up  to  255  columns 
of  information  per  case.  Not  recommended 
for  the  novice  researcher.  $400. 

Waterloo  Microsystems,  Inc. 
Waterloo,  Ontario 

Waterloo  Port.  A  standalone  or  local  area 
network  operating  system  with  the  following 
features:  multiple  processes;  interprocess 
message  passing;  user-interface  support  for 
multiple  windows,  pointing  and  selecting, 
menus  and  icons,  mouse,  tablet  or  trackball. 
Local  area  networking;  network  services; 
tree-structured  file  system;  browser  for  the 
file  system  and  networks;  full-screen  mouse- 
oriented  editor;  commands,  pipes  and  filters; 
mainframe  communications;  real-time;  port¬ 
ability;  several  language  processors;  inte¬ 
grated  software  development  tools. 

Weiss  Associates,  Inc. 

Red  Bank,  NJ 

Venture.  Performs  business  planning,  strate¬ 
gic  planning,  and  capital  investment  analy¬ 
sis.  Contains  the  logic,  accounting 
procedures,  calculations,  and  reports.  You 
specify  your  parameters  and  enter  data;  no 
need  to  write  equations  or  design  reports. 
$495. 


SOftalk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


149 


1@M  SSWSBJ 


Business 


John  Wiley  &  Sons,  Inc* 

New  York,  NY 

Buy  or  Lease:  A  Financial  Decision  Maker  A 
practical  program  to  help  business  owners 
and  purchasing  agents  weigh  all  the  costs,  di¬ 
rect  and  indirect,  of  buying  or  leasing  capital 
equipment  “from  typewriters  to  trucks  to 
machine  tools.  Incorporates  all  provisions  of 
the  1982  and  1983  tax  acts  to  show  most  pro¬ 
fitable  decision.  5125, 

Woolf  Software 
Canoga  Park,  CA 

Money  Manager  A  personal  and  very  small 
business  finance  program  for  systems  using 
CP/M  or  compatible  operating  systems.  Full 
facilities  are  provided  for  manipulation,  re¬ 


porting,  and  graphing  expenditures  and 
budgets.  The  systems  support  any  number 
of  user-definable  accounts.  An  on-line  help 
facility  is  also  provided. 

XQ  Software,  Inc, 

Norcross,  GA 

The  InvestmejM  Strategist.  Determines 
whether  a  particular  tax  shelter  is  a  good  in¬ 
vestment,  Lets  a  financial  planner  compare 
the  tax  shelter's  rate  of  return  with  projected 
returns  of  other  types  of  investments.  Can 
also  compare  several  tax  shelters  with  each 
other,  $395. 

The  Tax  Strategist ,  Automatically  deter¬ 
mines  the  right  amount  of  tax  shelter  based 
on  an  individual's  financial  situation.  The 
program  turns  the  pc  into  a  sophisticated  tax 
planning  tool  that  helps  an  investor  evaluate 
strategies  for  reducing  tax  liability.  $395. 


Communications 


Advanced  Micro  Techniques 
Foster  City,  CA 

MicroEZLNK.  An  interface  to  Western 
Unions  EasyLink  service.  Provides  auto¬ 
matic  dialing,  automatic  message  format¬ 
ting,  and  automatic  log-on  to  the  EasyLink 
system  with  a  single  keystroke,  Through  the 
use  of  the  directory  services  function,  the 
user  is  able  to  send  a  single  message  to  multi¬ 
ple  recipients  with  a  single  connection.  Takes 
care  of  formatting  the  message  for  the  vari¬ 
ous  types  of  messages  available,  including 
telex ,  TWX,  Mailgram,  telegram,  and  inter¬ 
national  cable,  all  automatically  from  the 
same  message  file.  $150. 

Intelligent  Terminal  Allows  the  user  to  con¬ 
nect  to  other  computer  systems  or  communi¬ 
cations  utilities  such  as  the  Source  or 
CompuServe.  With  !termf  you  may  record 
all  received  data  into  a  disk  file.  You  may  also 
transmit  data  previously  recorded  in  a  disk 
file.  While  on-line  you  may  display  disk 
directories,  erase  files,  alter  the  communica¬ 
tions  parameters,  and  open  and  close  the  re¬ 
ceive  and  transmit  files.  $150. 

Micro  TLX,  Turns  your  CP/M  computer  into 


an  intelligent  telex/TWX  machine.  You  can 
send  and  receive  telex  and  TWX  messages 
from  anywhere  in  the  world.  You  may  also 
send  mailgram,  telegram,  cables,  and  mul¬ 
tiaddress  messages  to  any  location.  Mi* 
croTLX  provides  all  these  facilities  through  a 
simple- to- use,  menu-driven  interface.  Mi- 
croTLX  connects  to  the  Telex  II  (TWX)  net¬ 
work.  $150. 

Advanced  Systems  Concepts,  Inc, 
Pasadena,  CA 

ALD8,  AQS  21,  Expanding  line  of  data  com¬ 
munication  equipment.  Cable,  modems,  in¬ 
telligent  and  manual  data  switches,  and 
converters  available.  Products  allow  periph¬ 
eral  networks  using  RS-232C  or  parallel  in¬ 
terfaces  in  a  business  environment.  Staff 
available  for  configuring  peripheral  net¬ 
works  using  RS-232C  or  parallel  interfaces  in 
a  business  environment.  Cable,  $4.  Modems, 
$110.  Switches,  $6O-$20Q  per  port.  Converts, 
$1 00-5500 . 

PC  Switch ,  Port  expander,  sfiarings  for  com¬ 
puters  and  modems  using  RS-232  or  parallel 
ports.  Allows  remote  operation  of  peripher¬ 


als  and  computers  under  software  control  of 
electronic  switches.  Staff  available  for  con¬ 
figuring  peripheral  networks.  Twenty-four 
hour  ASCII  Express  service  available.  $50  to 
$200  per  port. 

AgriData  Resources,  Inc. 

Milwaukee,  WI 

Agri-Star:  Connects  your  computer  or  data 
terminal  to  a  world  of  agricultural  news, 
weather,  and  commodity  prices  from  Merrill 
Lynch,  Associated  Press,  US  DA,  and  more. 
A  must  for  anyone  involved  in  any  phase  of 
agriculture.  For  more  information:  800-558- 
9044,  Basic  user  fee  $199. 

Alpha  Software  Corp, 

Burlington,  MA 

The  Apple-IBM  Connection.  Allows  for  the 
communication  between  two  computers— 
the  IBM  pc-XT  and  the  Apple  II  + ,  Apple  lie, 
and  the  Apple  II.  It  not  only  allows  the  easy 
transfer  of  data  files  but  allows  the  user  to 
enhance  spreadsheet  analysis  capabilities  by 
upgrading  Apple  VisiCak  files  to  Lotus's  3*2- 
3  files  on  the  pc.  Requires  Hayes  Micro  Mo¬ 
dem  II  plug-in  modem  board,  a  Mountain 
Computer  CPS  Multifunction  Card,  a  CCS 
Card,  or  a  Super  Serial  Card  for  transfer.  On 
the  IBM  side,  requires  any  RS-232  interface 
card,  $195, 

Applied  MicroSystems,  Inc. 

Roswell,  GA 

Intelecom.  A  fast  menu-driven  terminal 
package  with  the  communications  power  of 
PCDL  Features  include  Xmodem,  Xon/Xofif, 
APL,  automatic  dial-up  and  log-on,  auto¬ 
search  for  available  line/ port,  backward 
scrolling,  data  transmit/receive/capture, 
screen  snapshot/redisplay,  and  on-line  help, 
$99. 

PCDL  An  integrated  package  incorporating 
communications,  data  management,  and 
color  graphics  in  a  single  user-expandable 
system.  With  PCD1 ,  you  can  easily  dial  into 
mainframes,  information  services,  bulletin 
boards,  and  other  personal  computers  and 
retrieve  data.  Retrieved  data  can  be  quickly 
graphed  and  passed  to  other  programs.  $250. 

AST  Research,  Inc* 

Irvine,  C  A 

AST-BSC, AST-SNA.  A  3270  software  com¬ 
munications  package  (AST-BSC  is  bisync) 
that  enables  the  pc  to  emulate  a  remote  3274 
control  unit  with  attached  3278  or  3279  dis¬ 
play  station.  Optional  software  provides 
3770  RJE  workstation  functions,  supporting 
data  transfer  between  the  host  and  pc.  Other 
options  include  cluster  controller  support  for 
up  to  three  pc's  or  ASCII  terminals  as  addi¬ 
tional  3278  stations,  $895. 

AST-5251 ,  In  AST-5251  mode,  the  pc  ap¬ 
pears  to  the  host  as  an  interactive  IBM  5251 
Model  12  Display  Station  and  a  parallel 


150 


SOftdlk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


Expand  pour  IBM*PC  so  that  it  performs 

Micro  Design  International  announces  a  major 
breakthrough  in  peripheral  technology  —  The  Insider rH ! 

It  is  the  only  hard  disk  drive  system  to  offer  you  10-Mega- 
bytes  of  formatted  capacity  with  complete  internal 
installation,  all  for  $995.  Now  you  can  expand  your 
IBM*PC  to  handle  heavyweight  data  with  the  same  ease 
and  efficiency  as  the  PC  XT  By  equipping  your  PC  with 
The  Insider11"  you  can  save  up  to  $2;0QQ  over  the  cost  of  a 
PC  XT  The  insider1"1  is  also  compatible  with  most  IBM 
PC  lookalikes  Its  the  perfect  solution  to  your  data  needs 
and  budget. 

The  Insiders 3M  engineering  is  far  superior  to  any  other 


1st  engineering! 

hard  disk  drive  system  on  the  market.  Unlike  other 
internal  drives  which  require  an  external  power  supply 
ij  uses  available  power.  In  fact,  it  uses  only 
Et  current  thereby  eliminating  overheating, 
»hich  has  plagued  othmir  drives.  Our  drive 
lies  are  so  good  that  we  carry  a  full  one 


The  insider" 

Q.9Aof  < 

a  problem  * 
and* 

yearwarr 

r  includes  cor 
iplete  cables,  sii 
pmd  is  available  in  any 


iftware  with  all  needed 
Auctions  for  easy 
4  the  following 


ider™  Wine 
Itifu  notion 
ree  vacant 
sider™  Wine 
sk  Control! 


lattonal  Busina 


stem  w/ 

described  above 
slots)  .....  $995.00 
System  and  Floppy 
acant  module 


ts) . .  . .  $1,295.00 


like  the  PC  XT  for  a  fraction  of  the  cost. 

1503  Insider Winchester  System  w/RAM 

Memory  Card  that  will  hold  up  to  256K 
RAM  (no  RAM  installed).  (No  vacant 
module  slots) . . . .  Xi$l,295.0Q 

1504  Expansion  Memory  Module  for  Model  IS03 
to  allow  320K  additional  RAM  for  a  total  of 
576K  (Module  Only,  no  RAM 

installed) .  $129.00 

1505  Per  64 K  of  RAM  for  ISOS  and 

IS04  . ||  $  75.00 

1506  Multifunction  Card  with  6  vacant 

slots  . . , .  _ .  -- .  $  88.00 

MODULES  FOR  USE  WITH  ISOl  AND  IS06  ABOVE 

1507  Parallel  Port  Module  (Centronics 

Compatible)  . . . . . $  59.00 

ISOS  Serial  Port  Module  (RS232) .  $  95.00 

IS09  Clock  Calendar  Module  w/battery  $  65.00 

IS  10  Game  Adaptor  Module  _ _ $  55,00 

151 1  Hard  Disk  Controller  Module  including 

software  (requires  3  slots)  _  $395.99 

1512  XT-ROM . . . .  $  48.00 


To  expand  pour  PC  to  the  performance  of  a  PC  XT  at  a  fraction  of  the 
cost,  CALL  TODAY  to  order  The  Insider?  MasterCard  and  Visa  are 
accepted;  or,  send  check  or  money  order  to  Micro,  Design 
International 

to  order; 

CALL  COLLECT  305/788-3475 


Micro  Design  International 


Suite  375  100  Sybelia  Av 

Maitland,  Florida  32751 


Communications 


printer  attached  to  the  pc  will  be  supported 
as  an  IBM-type  5256  dot-matrix  printer.  Op¬ 
tions  include  software  to  provide  an  interface 
for  bidirectional  file  transfers  between  the  pc 
and  the  host  system.  $895. 

PCNet.  A  CSMA/CD  base  band  local  area 
network  that  allows  pcs  to  share  common 
files  for  database  operations  and  costly  hard¬ 
ware  resources  such  as  hard  disks  and  print¬ 
ers.  Includes  file  locking  and  remote 
execution.  Uses  CSMA/CD  media  access  in  a 
distributed  bus  topology,  and  has  a  data  rate 
of  1Mbps.  $695  per  node. 

AST-3780.  A  bisync  communications  pack¬ 
age  that  emulates  the  functions  of  an  IBM 
2780/3780  RJE  workstation.  It  allows  inter¬ 
active  use  by  an  operator  or  batch  processing 
for  unattended  operation.  Other  features  in¬ 
clude  command  file  configuration,  transpar¬ 
ent  and  nontransparent  operation,  dynamic 
device  selection  between  disk,  screen,  and 
printer.  $945. 

Back  Bay  Micro 
Burlington,  MA 

Hayes  Compatible  Smartmodem.  Features 
additional  printer  port,  battery  backup 
clock,  and  serial  port.  All  four  functions  are 
designed  into  one  printed  circuit  card.  The 
modem  will  perform  with  all  Hayes  soft¬ 
ware.  The  serial  port  can  be  switched  to 
other  functions  when  not  driving  the  mo¬ 
dem.  $300. 

Bizcomp  Corporation 
Sunnyvale,  CA 

PCtlntellimodem,  A  1200-baud  plug-in  mo¬ 
dem  for  the  pc  and  XT.  Features  integrated 
voice  and  data  communications,  telephone 
directory,  and  a  two-year  warranty.  $499. 

Robert  J.  Brady  Co. 

Bowie,  MD 

Communications  Networking  for  the  IBM 
PC,  by  Larry  Jordan  and  Bruce  Churchill. 
This  comprehensive  summary  of  all  aspects 
of  data  communications  applications  for  the 
pc  covers  a  wide  variety  of  existing  and  pro¬ 
jected  data  communications  applications,  in¬ 
cluding  character  codes.  Provides  the  novice 
user  with  a  thorough  background  in  pc  data 
communications.  Covers  both  asynchronous 
and  synchronous  communications  and  local 
area  networking  extensively.  $18.95. 

Digisoft  Computers,  Inc. 

New  York,  NY 

Mailcom .  Send  more  than  2,000  letters  per 
hour,  delivered  in  less  than  48  hours,  at  $.26  a 
piece,  from  your  computer,  using  the  U.S. 
Postal  Service's  E-Com  system.  Mailcom  is 
interactive,  easy-to-use,  menu-driven  soft¬ 
ware,  including  a  text  editor,  mailing  list 


manager,  set-up  and  format  programs,  and 
communications.  $195. 

Digital  Marketing  Corp. 

Walnut  Creek,  CA 

The  Micro  Link  II.  Conducts  keyboard  con¬ 
versations,  sends  and  receives  electronic  mail 
and  exchanges  any  file  (up  to  disk  capacity). 
Saves  all  or  selected  parts  of  transmission  to 
disk.  Development  of  the  Micro  Link  II  was 
based  on  input  from  thousands  of  data  com¬ 
munication  users.  $99. 

direct. aid,  Inc. 

Boulder,  CO 

direct. connect.  An  intelligent  terminal  and 
transfer  program  for  communicating  with 
other  computers  and  databases.  The  IBM 
user  can  capture  data  to  disk  file  and  send 
files  to  other  computers.  The  program  has 
programmable  function  keys,  more  than 
twenty-five  different  help  screens,  and  up  to 
9,600  baud  throughput.  $145. 

Electronic  Data  Systems 
Dallas,  TX 

EDS  Communicator/ Text  Editor.  Communi¬ 
cations  and  text  editor  program.  Transfers 
files  at  300  or  1200  baud  using  ASCII  or 
Xmodem.  Autoanswer  or  autodial  and  auto- 
log-on  to  various  networks.  Stores  up  to 
2,000  lines  in  memory  for  global  command 
column  monitor.  $125. 

ErgoSoft 

San  Diego,  CA 

p-Comm.  An  intelligent  communications 
package  for  the  UCSD  p-System.  Autodial¬ 
ing,  phone  directory,  upload,  download. 
Christensen  protocol.  1200-baud  operation 
$95. 

p-Comm  3.0.  An  update  to  the  professional 
communications  package  for' the  UCSD  p- 
System.  Features  upload,  download,  Xmo¬ 
dem  file  transfer,  pacing,  Xon/Xoff, 
throttling,  phone  directory,  automatic  log¬ 
on,  and  terminal  emulation  up  to  1200  baud. 
Autodialer  sets  com  parameters.  Requires 
NCI  p-System  version  IV 1.  (IBM  p-System 
version  also  available).  $95. 

Frontier  Technologies  Corp. 

Milwaukee,  WI 

Advanced  Communications  Board .  Provides 
multiple  protocol  support.  Programmable 
word  lengths,  stop  bits,  and  baud  rate  (maxi¬ 
mum  baud  rate  19 .2K ) .  Options  include  par¬ 
allel  port  and  serial  port.  $275. 

X.25  Software.  Will  run  on  Frontier's  Ad¬ 
vanced  Communication  Board.  Implements 
all  three  levels  of  CCITT  X.25  specification 
with  1980  amendments.  The  software  is  de¬ 
veloped  in  a  higher-order  language  that  is 
compatible  with  the  pc  operating  system. 
$795. 


Compac.  Allows  asynchronous  communica¬ 
tion  through  an  IBM  standard  RS-232C  inter¬ 
face  or  Frontier  Technologies  Advanced 
Communications  Board.  The  program  also 
implements  bisync,  HDLC/SDLC,  and  X.25 
protocols  on  the  Frontier  Technologies 
board.  Includes  upload  and  download  of  AS¬ 
CII  files,  user-definable  function  keys,  and 
baud  rates  up  to  19. 2K.  $125. 

Gateway  Microsystems,  Inc. 

Austin,  TX 

Microgate  2780/3780  Emulator.  An  inte¬ 
grated  hardware  /so  ft ware  product  that  en¬ 
ables  the  pc  to  communicate  with  other 
computers  using  the  bisync  protocol.  Fea¬ 
tures  both  interactive  and  batch  command 
modes,  with  multilevel  help  screens,  and 
both  synchronous  and  asynchronous  opera¬ 
tion  to  4800  bps.  $895. 

MicroGate  II  2780/3780  Emulator.  An  inte¬ 
grated  hardware/ software  product  that  en¬ 
ables  bisync  communications  to  be  built  into 
custom  software  packages.  Interfaces  di¬ 
rectly  with  MS-COBOL,  permitting  com¬ 
plete  application  program  control  of  a 
communication  session.  $895. 

Giltronix,  Inc. 

Palo  Alto,  CA 

The  Automatic  Scanner.  Allows  keyboard  or 
computer-program  controlled  sharing  of  a 
common  device  among  numerous  comput¬ 
ers,  terminals,  and  modems.  Switches  eight 
lines,  RS-232C  interface.  Available  with  one 
I/O  and  three,  five,  or  seven  communication 
ports.  Includes  integral  line  drivers /receivers 
for  improved  data  transmission.  $359-$509. 
Automatic  Switching  Unit.  Selects  peripher¬ 
als  in  local  or  remote  locations  under  key¬ 
board  or  computer  program  control. 
Asynchronous,  RS-232  protocol.  Fixed  or 
auto  baud  rate.  Available  with  one  I/O  port 
and  three,  five,  or  seven  communication 
ports.  Includes  integral  line  drivers-receivers 
for  improved  data  transmission.  $459-$609. 

The  Headlands  Press,  Inc. 

Tiburon,  CA 

PC-Talk  III.  Uploads,  downloads,  and  has  a 
60-entry  autodial  directory.  Transmit  options 
allow  for  transmitting  binary  files,  line  pac¬ 
ing  protocol  at  300  to  1200  baud.  Forty  possi¬ 
ble  permanent  input  strings.  A  70-page  user's 
guide  is  supplied  on  disk.  $35. 

IAS  Corp. 

W.  Willington,  CT 

Genterm.  Communications  package  for  file 
transfers  and  communication  with  most  any 
micro,  mini,  or  mainframe  computer.  Offers 
autodial,  autolog-on,  and  protocol  customi¬ 
zation.  Buffered  file  capture  enables  receiving 
files  larger  than  memory.  Transfers  seven- 
and  eight-bit  files  with  error  checking. 
$79.95. 


SOftOlk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


PC-Showoff! 

Okay,  they  all  know  you  just  invested  in  a  new 
IBM  Personal  Computer.  Most  of  them  figure 
they’ll  have  to  get  one  some  day.  Most  of  them 
want  to  see  fireworks.  Most  of  them  expect 
to  see  words  and  numbers.  After  all,  the  IBM  is  a 
serious  machine. 

Now,  what  are  you  going  to  show  them  when 
they  say,  “Show  us”?  Surprise  them.  Impress 
them.  Impress  yourself.  Show  ’em  PC-Showoff! 

•  Explode  bombshells  in  living  color. 

•  Design  your  own  personal  rainbows. 

•  Set  off  roman  candles  in  16  colors. 
PC-Showoff!  will  turn  that  mild-mannered 
machine  into  a  show-stopper.  And  you  into  a 
guaranteed  crowd-pleaser.  There’s  more  fun 
to  an  IBM  than  just  opening  the  box.  Let 


Ufi  SoftStyle 


At  dealers,  or  order  direct,  $39,95  +  $2,00  handling.  SoftStyle, 
Suite  2Q0t  Dept,  D,  7192  Kalanianaole  Hwy.,  Honolulu,  Hawaii 
96825  Telephone:  (80S)  396-6368  Master  Card  and  VISA  accepted. 


Package  includes  spectacular  visual  effects,  in  high,  medium, 
and  low  resolution  graphics,  plus  examples  of  graphics  applications 
on  easy-to-use  diskette.  Also  includes  manual  with  over  30 
pages  of  tips  and  techniques  for  achieving  the  same  results  for 
both  beginning  and  advanced  programmers. 

Requires  1BM-PC  with  graphics  adaptor,  1  disk  drive,  64K  and 
DOS  1,1  or  2,0  {96 K  with  DOS  2.0).  Color  display  or  television 
recommended. 


PC-  Showoff!  show  you  how.  So  the  next  time 
the  gang  asks  for  a  look  at  your  new  “toy”, 
show  ’em  your  stuff!  And  ours.  PC-Showoff! 


Communications 


IDE  Associates,  Inc. 

Bedford,  MA 

IDEAComm  1200.  A  1200/300-baud  com¬ 
munications  card.  Combines  the  functions  of 
an  in-board  asynchronous  communications 
card  with  an  out-board  modem  in  one  inte¬ 
grated  plug-in  unit.  A  software  disk  allows 
menu-driven  selection  of  all  communica¬ 
tions,  autodial,  and  autolog-on  procedures. 
1200  works  with  most  other  terminal  emula¬ 
tion  packages  including  the  IBM  Comm  2.0, 
$545. 

Inner  Loop  Software 
Los  Angeles,  CA 

VOTE  2.  Emulates  HP  2624,  HP  2648,  and 
VT52-type  VDTs.  Supports  HP  2624  block 
mode  and  a  subset  of  HP  2648  graphics.  Ten 
speeds,  including  9600  baud.  Seven  pages  of 
scrolling  memory  per  port.  Includes  ASCII 
file  transfer  system.  $200. 

Intelligent  Technologies 
International  Inc. 

Palo  Alto,  CA 

PC  Express.  A  fully  integrated  communica¬ 
tions  package  with  software,  tutorials,  and 
pc  board  with  300-baud  on-board  modem, 
pc-to-pc,  pc-to-mainframe  communications 
emulating  IBM  3274  cluster  controller,  327X 
terminals,  and  3370  RJE  via  SNA.  DEC  VT 
100/52  terminal  emulation.  $895.  With 
SNA,  $1,295. 

International  Software  Alliance 
Santa  Barbara,  CA 

Lync.  Has  menu-driven  setup  for  the  most 
popular  CP/M  computers:  Lync  IBM  pc 
DOS,  Victor  9000  MS  DOS,  and  TRSDOS 
versions  are  machine  dependent  and  come  al¬ 
ready  set  up.  Requires  56k.  $115. 

Link  Systems 
Santa  Monica, CA 

DataLink.  A  telecommunications  software 
that  allows  fast,  simple,  error-free  communi¬ 
cations  computer-to-computer  and  com- 
puter-to-databases,  time-sharing  systems, 
bulletin  boards,  and  so  on.  Transmit-receiver 
speed  is  9600  baud  from  computer  to  com¬ 
puter  or  1200  baud  over  telephone  lines. 

Micro  Decision  Systems 
Pittsburgh,  PA 

LoadCalc.  Converts  text  data  downloaded 
from  mainframes  into  WKS  (1-2-3)  or  DIF 
files.  Handles  mixed  text  and  values  without 
special  formatting  or  programming.  $95. 

Multi-Tech  Systems,  Inc. 

New  Brighton,  MN 

Multi-Modem.  A  complete  300/1200  baud 


communications  system  designed  for  use 
with  the  pc  and  XT.  It  consists  of  a  single  card 
modem  that  plugs  into  any  expansion  slot  in¬ 
side  the  computer.  An  extensive  communica¬ 
tions  software  package  is  included.  $549. 

Novation  Inc. 

Chatsworth,  CA 

Smart-Cat .  103  model  operates  at  110  baud 
and  300  baud;  the  103/212  at  300  and  1200 
baud,  both  full  duplex.  They  have  an  RS-232 
interface  and  can  operate  in  autoanswer  and 
autodial  (touch-tone  and  pulse)  modes.  Both 
have  an  extensive  software  command  set  and 
automatic  modem  responses  for  dialing  sta¬ 
tus.  The  103  modem,  $249;  the  103/212, 
$595. 

PC1200B.  A  smart  modem  designed  to  fit  in  a 
slot  inside  the  pc  or  XT.  It  has  an  extensive 
software  command  set  and  sends  automatic 
responses  indicating  line  status.  Operating  at 
300  or  1200  baud,  the  PC1200B  has  autodial, 
autoanswer  modes,  and  self-test,  analog  and 
digital  loopback  tests.  Packaged  with  Cros¬ 
stalk  XVI  software  program  for  $595. 

On-Line  Software  International 
Fort  Lee,  NJ 

Omnilink.  An  integrated  software  package 
that  allows  IBM  pcs,  mainframes,  word 
processing  equipment,  and  other  communi¬ 
cations  network  devices  to  communicate  in¬ 
telligently.  Enables  the  user  to  access  and 
manipulate  data  that  resides  either  in  the 
mainframe  or  in  the  pc  and  exchange  data  be¬ 
tween  the  two.  Information  can  then  be  dis¬ 
tributed  throughout  the  entire  commun¬ 
ications  network  using  Omnilinks  electronic 
mail  facilities.  Price  available  upon  request. 

Orchid  Technology 
Fremont,  CA 

PCnet.  A  local  area  network  allows  sharing 
of  expensive  resources  such  as  hard  disks, 
printers,  and  communication  lines.  $695. 

Personal  Computer  Products 

Santa  Clara,  CA 

Apple  to  IBM  File  Transfer  Program.  Allows 
the  transfer  of  files  from  Apple  II,  II  + ,  and 
He  to  the  pc  or  XT.  Includes  communications 
program  for  the  pc  and  Apple  as  well  as  an 
adapter  that  allows  the  two  systems  to  con¬ 
nect.  Contains  several  utilities  that  assist  in 
program  conversion  and  can  aid  in  the  prep¬ 
aration  of  files  for  editing.  File  concatenation 
is  provided  as  well  as  the  ability  to  send  files 
of  any  length.  Supported  baud  rates  are  110 
to  9600.  $94.95. 

TRS-80  to  IBM  File  Transfer  Program.  A 
package  that  allows  the  transfer  of  files  from 
the  Radio  Shack  Model  I,  II,  4, 12,  III,  and  16 
to  the  pc.  Communications  programs  for 
both  systems  are  included.  Also  included  is 
an  adapter  that  allows  the  two  systems  to 
connect,  and  a  test  communication  file  that 


verifies  correct  connection  and  proper  trans¬ 
mission.  File  concatenation  is  provided  and 
the  ability  to  send  files  of  any  length.  Sup¬ 
ported  baud  rates  from  110  to  9600.  $89.95. 

Persyst 
Irvine,  CA 

PC/HASP.  Used  in  conjunction  with  Per- 
syst's  DCP-88  communications  processor, 
the  PC/ HASP  program  allows  pc  and  pc-XT 
users  to  perform  RJE  /HASP  functions  with 
IBM  and  other  HASP-compatible  main¬ 
frames.  Including  DCP-88  front-end  commu¬ 
nications  processor.  $1,690. 

PC/3780.  Used  in  conjunction  with  DCP-88 
communications  processor,  the  PC/3780 
program  converts  a  pc  to  an  IBM  2780/3780 
remote  job  entry  workstation.  PC/ 3780  soft¬ 
ware,  $595.  DCP-88  front-end  communica¬ 
tions  processor,  $695. 

COAX/3278.  Combines  an  8088-based  pro¬ 
grammable  controller  with  Persyst's  COAX/ 
3278  program.  Converts  a  pc  to  an  IBM 
video  display  terminal.  $995. 

PC/3270.  Used  in  conjunction  with  DCP-88 
communications  processor,  the  PC/3270 
program  allows  a  pc  to  function  as  an  IBM 
3274  cluster  control  unit  and  3278  terminal. 
PC/3270  program,  $595.  DCP-88  board, 
$695. 

Qubie'  Distributing 
Camarillo,  CA 

The  Qubie  PC  212 A/ 1200  Modem  Card.  An 
autodial,  autoanswer  modem  that  can  send 
and  receive  data  at  300  or  1200  baud.  Four 
digital  microprocessors  insure  accurate  data 
transmission.  The  Qubie'Comm  software  in¬ 
cluded  is  Hayes  compatible.  $299. 

ReadiWare  Systems 
W.  Redding,  CT 

ReadiTerm.  A  comprehensive  communica¬ 
tions  program  that  allows  you  to  connect  to 
other  computers  with  a  single  keystroke. 
Turns  a  pc  into  an  intelligent  terminal  that  al¬ 
lows  you  to  send  or  receive  data  from  the 
Source,  CompuServe,  and  other  networks 
with  ease.  $75. 

Rogue  River  Software 
Medford,  OR 

The  Odd-Couple.  A  set  of  machine-language 
programs  that  allow  communications  be¬ 
tween  a  pc  and  Apple  computer.  Communi¬ 
cations  can  be  direct  or  through  a  modem  at 
speeds  up  to  9,600  bps.  Menu-driven  for  ease 
of  use  and  can  transfer  any  file.  Communica¬ 
tions  can  also  be  Apple  to  Apple  or  IBM  to 
IBM.  $79.95. 

Smith  Educational  Engineering 
Service,  Inc. 

Arlington  Heights,  IL 

Icomm.  An  intelligent  communications 


154 


softalk 


Communications 


package  that  turns  a  pc  into  a  terminal  for 
communicating  with  mainframes,  other  per¬ 
sonal  computers,  and  mini-computers.  $150. 

Software  Connections,  Inc. 

Santa  Clara,  CA 

LAN:Mail  Monitor.  Store  and  forward  elec¬ 
tronic  mail  software  package  for  Corvus 
Omninet  local  area  networks.  Allows  users 
to  send  letters  and  transfer  Hies  to  each  other 
locally  or  to  users  at  other  networks  over  the 
phone  lines.  Letters  may  be  addressed  to  indi¬ 
vidual  users  or  to  predefined  distribution  list. 
$745-$l,195. 

Software  Products  International, 

Inc. 

San  Diego,  CA 

Communications .  This  program  allows  your 
computer  to  communicate  with  the  outside 
world  through  serial  cable  coupler  modem  or 
smart  modem.  Operate  in  a  master/ slave 
mode  between  two  computers,  as  a  terminal 
emulator  for  large  systems,  or  as  a  user  on  a 
national  network. 


Solutions,  Inc. 

Montpelier,  VT 

VIS/BRIDGE/D].  Transmits  data  from  Dow 
Jones  News /Retrieval  directly  into  a  VisiCalc 
spreadsheet.  $295. 

Starside  Engineering 
Rochester,  NY 

InterLync.  An  interactive  terminal  package 
for  file  transfer  at  110  to  9600  baud.  Inter¬ 
rupt-driven  for  zero  data  loss.  Transfers  files 
with  ETX/ACK,  Xon/Xoff,  stream  ASCII 
data  capture,  and  Xmodem  protocol. 
Twenty-six  definable  function  keys,  on-line 
help,  on-line  tutorial.  $149.  With  APL 
EPROM,  $199. 

Transend  Corporation 
San  Jose,  CA 

The  Pc  Modemcard.  Has  110/300  baud  capa¬ 
bilities  and  can  be  upgraded  to  1200  baud 
with  a  plug-on  212  adapter  card  that  requires 
no  additional  peripheral  slot.  Includes  a  sim¬ 
ple  terminal  program  for  immediate  commu¬ 
nication.  Supports  autodial/autoanswer, 
pulse  and  touchtone  capabilities.  $269-$549. 


Universal  Barter  Corp. 

Los  Angeles,  CA 

Dial  Your  Match  Maintenance  Program.  De¬ 
signed  for  use  with  the  Dial  Your  Match  bul¬ 
letin  board.  Maintains  passwords,  address 
codes,  system  access  codes,  date  of  last  call. 
Version  1.1,  $15.95.  Version  1.2,  $29.95. 

Universal  Data  Systems 
Huntsville,  AL 

UDS  103LP  O/A.  A  full-duplex  modem  op¬ 
erating  at  0  to  300  bps  over  the  dial-up  net¬ 
work.  Features  originate  /answer  capability 
and  derives  operating  power  directly  from 
the  telephone  line.  No  AC  power  needed. 
$145. 

UDS  103JLP.  A  full-duplex  modem  operating 
at  0  to  300  bps  over  dial-up  network.  Fea¬ 
tures  automatic  answer  and  derives  all  its  op¬ 
erating  power  from  the  telephone  line.  No 
AC  power  is  needed.  $195. 

UDS  103].  A  full-duplex  modem  operating  at 
0  to  300  bps  over  both  dial-up  and  private 
lines.  Features  automatic  answer  and  built-in 
diagnostics.  $425. 

UDS  202LP.  A  half -duplex  modem  operating 
at  0  to  1200  bps  over  dial-up  lines.  Derives  its 
operating  power  from  the  telephone  line. $195. 


Plan  A  Fund  To  Finance  Your  Dreams 


Most  dreams  cost  money,  and  eventually  must  face  the 
realities  of  financial  planning.  To  devise  the  best  possible 
savings  plan,  you  must  grapple  with  problems  that  aren't  clear 
when  you  sit  down  with  pencil  and  paper 
to  do  a  little  simple  arithmetic. 


You'll  quickly  find  that  there's  nothing  simple  about  planning 
to  fund  a  wedding,  a  boat,  a  vacation,  or  send  a  kid  to  college. 


Once  you  begin  to  juggle  overlapping  target  dates,  the  effects 
of  different  inflation  rates,  lump  sums  from  summer  job 
savings,  matriculation  expenses,  living  costs,  vacation  travel 
costs  and  much  more,  .  .  .  the  need  for  FUND-IT  will  become 
very  clear. 


With  FUND-IT,  you  can  breeze  through  the  stickier  problems 
like  sending  two  kids  to  different  colleges,  in  different  states, 
figure  in  regional  cost  differences,  even  add  on  grad  school 
calculations  and  then  compare  the  effects  of  several  different 
approaches,  all  with  an  ease  that  will  surprise  and  please  you. 


You  will  appreciate  the  careful,  meticulous  work  that  users 
and  industry  reviewers  have  come  to  expect  from  Sawhney 
Software  products.  We  call  it  braincrafting.  It  simply  means  intelligent  attention  to  detail.  This  allows  you  to  put 
your  mental  energies  where  it  counts  most,  in  creating  a  sound  plan  to  realize  your  dreams  with  Fund-It. 


PERFORMANCE  INFORMATION 

FUND-IT  consists  of  four  modules: 

Education  Funding — Projects  the  cost  of  a  college 
education  for  up  to  5  students  simultaneously  for  up 
to  30  years,  includes  a  regional  College  Cost  Database 
and  displays  four  alternative  methods  of  financing 
these  costs.  Prints  a  monthly  or  annual  cash  flow 
report. 

Special  Event  Funding — projects  the  future  cost  of  a 
wedding,  purchase  of  a  house,  or  other  major  pur¬ 
chases  based  on  current  costs  and  inflation  rates. 
Displays  alternative  methods  of  financing  for  up  to  5 


events  over  a  thirty-year  plan.  Prints  a  cashflow  report 
for  each  method. 

Fund  Accumulation — Computes  the  future  value  of 
savings  or  retirement  plan.  Accommodates  an  exist¬ 
ing  balance,  irregular  contributions,  various  rates  of 
return  and  interest  compounding  methods.  Displays 
balance  on  date  selected  and  amount  of  interest 
earned.  Prints  a  monthly  or  annual  cash  accumulation 
report. 

Mortgage/Loan  Amortization — Computes  and  Dis¬ 
plays  monthly  mortgage  payments,  total  interest  and 


principal  paid.  Instantaneous  response  to  "what-if" 
changes  to  input.  Print  a  monthly  or  annual  amortiza¬ 
tion  table. 


TO  ORDER:  Copies  of  FUND-IT  are  $69.95  each. 
Mastercard  and  Visa  are  accepted. 


Braincrafted  By  Sawhney  Software 

A  DIVISION  OF  J.R  SAWHNEY  &  CO.,  INC.  888  SEVENTH  AVE.  N.Y.,  N.Y.  10106/  212  541  8020 


for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


155 


Communications 


UDS  212A/D .  A  full-duplex  modem  operat¬ 
ing  at  0  to  300  and  1200  bps  over  the  dial-up 
network.  Features  automatic  dial,  storage  of 
phone  numbers,  battery-backed  memory, 
menu  of  commands,  pulse  or  tone  dial  and 
single  keystroke  dialing,  $645, 

UDS  202SLP.  A  half-duplex  modem  operat¬ 
ing  0  to  1200  bps  over  the  dial-up  lines.  De¬ 
rives  all  its  operating  power  from  the 
telephone  line.  $245. 

U  S  Robotics,  Inc. 

Chicago,  1L 

Auto  Dial  212A.  A  300/1200  baud  modem 
with  autodial,  autoanswer,  ha  If /full  duplex, 
LED  indicators,  and  analog  loopback/self- 
test.  Can  be  used  with  a  variety  of  communi¬ 
cation  software,  including  TELPAC,  Ward 
Christensen's  public  domain  programs,  AM- 
CALL,  and  Crosstalk.  $599. 

Password.  A  300/1200  baud  autodial,  au¬ 
toanswer  modem.  Full/half  duplex  Bell 
212A,  103,  113  compatible.  Utilizes  only  12 
ICs  on  a  single  board  design.  May  be  used 
with  a  wide  variety  of  communication  soft¬ 
ware,  including  TELPAC,  Ward  Christen¬ 
sen's  public  domain  programs,  and 
Cross  talk.  $449. 

Visionary  Electronics,  inc 

San  Francisco,  CA 

Visionary  100.  Microprocessor-based  data 


American  Training  International 

Manhattan  Beach,  CA 
Command  Power  for  WordStar  Teaches  the 
advanced  functions  of  WordStar  in  less  than 
three  hours  while  providing  practice  with 
real  WordStar  commands.  Recommended 
for  persons  who  have  completed  Menu- 
Power  for  WordStar  Vol  1.  $45. 
Menu-Power  for  WordStar,  Vol  1.  Teaches 
the  use  of  WordStar  in  less  than  one  hour 
while  providing  practice  with  real  WordStar 


communications  peripheral  Contains  300 
bps  direct-connect  modem,  internal  RAM  (2 
-24k),  and  on-board  clock.  Works  indepen¬ 
dently  of  computer.  Download  data  from 
computer  to  Visionary  set  transmission 
time,  turn  off  computer,  or  otherwise  engage 
it  All  automatic  features,  Depending  on 
memory,  $595  to  $760. 

VM  Personal  Computing 
New  York,  NY 

Relay,  Can  send  one  file,  receive  another,  edit 
a  third,  and  print  a  fourth—all  at  the  same 
time,  $149. 

Please,  pc/ mainframe  link.  Runs  on  an  IBM 
mainframe  and  allows  the  pc  with  Relay  to 
upload  and  download  any  kind  of  file.  Full 
error  detection  and  correction  ensures  faith¬ 
ful  transfers.  Can  backup  pc  files  on  your 
mainframe  system,  $1,495, 

Woolf  Software 
Canoga  Park,  CA 

A  smart  terminal  and  file  transfer 
program  for  small  computers  running  CP/ 
M,  CP/M-66,  MS-DOS,  and  other  operating 
systems.  All  commands  can  be  controlled 
from  one  end,  all  owing  comm  uni  cation  to  un¬ 
attended  computers.  Features  include  trans¬ 
mission/reception  of  files,  error-free 
transfers  between  Moue-if's,  support  for 
autodial  modems,  local  and  remote  directo* 
ries/user  numbers,  and  messages.  Includes 
configuration  and  help  utilities,  £125  to  $150. 


commands.  Features  an  interactive  training 
disk  and  a  tabbed  handbook.  $45, 

Training  Power,  A  series  of  programs  that 
teach  basic  computer  subjects  while  provid¬ 
ing  hands-on  practice.  An  interactive  train¬ 
ing  disk  and  tabbed  handbook  teach  usable 
skills.  Versions  are  available  for  BPI  General 
Accounting,  Benchmark,  CP/M,  dBase  Ut 
Easy  Filer,  EasyPlanner,  Easy  Writer  //,  MS- 
DOS,  MBasic,  MicroPlan ,  MultiPlan ,  PC- 
DOS,  SuperCalc ,  and  Vis i Calc.  $75  each. 


Behavioral  Engineering 
Scotts  Valley,  CA 

Letter  Man ,  Hungry  gobblers  chase  you 
around  a  maze  at  ever-increasing  speeds.  You 
move  by  typing  the  letters  that  fill  the  maze. 
Learn  to  type  while  you  are  playing,  $34.95, 
Typing  Strategy.  Teaches  you  to  type  as 
quickly  and  accurately  as  a  professional  typ¬ 
ist.  Animated  hands  and  keyboard  show  you 
which  key  to  press  and  which  finger  to  use. 
Games  and  exercises  help  to  increase  your 
speed  and  accuracy,  $34.95. 

Blythe  Valley  Software,  Inc, 

Oakhurst,  CA 

Milky  Way  Merchant.  A  trading  strategy 
game  in  which  you  make  deals  for  profit, 
identify  markets  and  their  needs,  and  plan 
your  trading  route.  Beginning  players  may 
use  the  automatic  set-up  feature,  while  ad¬ 
vanced  players  may  set  up  their  own  varia¬ 
tions  of  the  game,  $34,95. 

(SpeT-  bound).  A  comprehensive  package  of 
programs  that  may  be  used  by  parents  or 
teachers  to  support  any  spelling  program. 
There  are  thirteen  activities  that  present 
word  scrambles,  mazes,  games,  and  spelling 
correction.  The  data  disk  my  be  changed  to 
accommodate  any  reading  level  $79,95. 

Cardinal  Software,  Inc. 

So,  Hamilton,  MA 

Micromentor  Learning  System.  Educational 
software  for  home  or  school  Organizes  the 
acquisition  of  material  into  both  long-  and 
short-term  memory  using  two  different 
methods  of  learning.  Long-term  learning  is 
facilitated  by  a  process  called  adaptive  rein¬ 
forcement.  This  is  the  selective  recall  of  mate¬ 
rial  from  a  database  over  an  extended  period 
of  time,  during  which  the  learner's  retention 
spans  are  automatically  measured  and  the  re¬ 
call  schedules  adapted  accordingly.  Short¬ 
term  memorization  is  addressed  by  a  process 
analogous  to  flash-card  learning.  The  learner 
proceeds  at  his/her  own  pace  so  that  accom¬ 
plishment  is  maximized  and  boredom  is 
minimized.  Database  subjects  include  the 
SAT  French,  Spanish,  homonyms,  and  biol¬ 
ogy  $125.  Databases,  $50  each. 

CBS  Educational  and  Professional 
Publishing 

New  York,  NY 

Programming  the  IBM.  Personal  Computer : 
Basic ,  by  Neill  Graham.  From  switching 
your  pc  on  to  editing  text,  handling  random 
and  sequential  files — even  making  music — 
this  easy-to-follow  book  shows  you  how. 
$17, 

Programing  Personal  Cotnputer ; 

Fortran  77,  by  Robert  Rouse  and  Thomas 
Bugnitz.  Examples,  problems,  and  exercises 
from  science  and  engineering  illustrate  both 
introductory  and  advanced  topics,  including 


156 


SOftOlk 


Education 


IBM's  Fortran  compiler.  $17. 

Programming  the  IBM  Personal  Computer . 
Pascal ,  by  Neill  Graham ,  Accessible  to  be¬ 
ginners,  this  structured  presentation  shows 
how  to  program  with  the  powerful  compiler 
Pascal  developed  by  IBM  for  the  pc.  $16.95. 
Programming  the  IBM  Personal  Computer: 
UCSD  Pascal,  by  Seymour  V  Pollack.  A  self- 
paced  introduction  to  UCSD  Pascal  (and 
programming)  on  the  pc,  using  the  UCSD 
p-System,  Many  examples  and  problems, 
both  serious  and  whimsical,  $17. 

Using  the  IBM  Personal  Computer ;  Word¬ 
Star,  by  Cj  Puotinen.  Even  for  those  unfamil¬ 
iar  with  the  pc,  this  book's  many  examples 
and  projects  will  easily  lead  to  mastery  of  the 
WordStar  word  processing  system.  $16*95. 
Using  the  IBM  Personal  Computer :  VisiCalc, 
by  Robert  Crowley.  Leam  VisiCalc  step-by- 
step  on  your  pc;  work  on  projects — some 
easy  others  not — in  a  wide  range  of  applica¬ 
tion  areas,  $19.95. 

Your  IBM  Personal  Computer:  Use f  Applica¬ 
tions t  and  Basic ,  by  David  E.  Cortesi.  An  ele¬ 
mentary,  nonthreatening  introduction  to  the 
pc.  Includes  setup  and  testing,  disk  files,  Visi¬ 
Calc  and  other  software,  and  the  rudiments 
of  Basic.  $17. 


Cdex  Corp. 

Los  Altos,  CA 

How  To  Use  Your  IBM  PC  or  PC-XT  with  PC 
DOS ,  Learn  the  full  range  of  PODOS  com¬ 
mands  and  the  full  range  of  special  keys  on 
the  XT  keyboard.  Introduces  other  operating 
systems  such  as  CP/M  and  Unix,  the  Basic 
programming  language,  and  applications 
software.  Comes  with  four  interactive  tuto¬ 
rial  disks  and  a  user  s  guide  to  train  the  first¬ 
time  or  experienced  user.  £69.95, 

How  to  Use  Your  IBM  PC  or  PC-XT  with 
CP/M  86  and  Concurrent  CP/M  56,  Learn 
to  use  the  full  range  of  CP/M  86  and  Concur¬ 
rent  CP/M  86  commands  and  the  full  range 
of  special  keys  on  the  XT  keyboard.  Intro¬ 
duces  other  operating  systems  such  as  PC- 
DOS  and  Unix,  Basic,  and  applications 
software,  which  can  help  you  get  the  most 
out  of  your  pc  or  XT,  Comes  complete  with 
four  interactive  tutorial  disks  and  a  user 
guide,  $69.95, 

Training  for  the  IBM  PC  DOS  2. 0.  Provides 
comprehensive  instruction  in  both  beginning 
and  advanced  DOS  commands  for  the  new 
and  experienced  pc  user.  The  package  con¬ 
sists  of  three  interactive  tutorial  disks  and  a 
reference  guide.  $69.95 
How  to  Program  in  BASIC  on  your  IBM  PC . 
For  the  nonprogrammer  who  wants  to  write 
customized  software  for  the  pc.  Minimal 


background  in  programming  is  assumed. 
Leam  important  Basic  commands  and  state¬ 
ments  and  some  general  rules  of  program¬ 
ming.  The  package  comes  complete  with  two 
interactive  tutorial  disks  and  a  reference 
guide,  $69,95 

CMA  Micro  Computer 

Yucca  Valley,  CA 

The  Teacher  PC ,  Trains  the  user  on  the  opera¬ 
tions  of  PC-DOS,  DOS  utilities,  and  the 
three  levels  of  Basic.  Comes  with  instruc¬ 
tional  manual  and  study  guide.  $149*95* 

Comprehensive  Software  Support 
Redondo  Beach,  CA 
DB  Tutor.  Teaches  you  everything  you  need 
to  know  about  databases  and  takes  you 
through  introductory  tutorials  on  1-2-3  by 
Lotus,  dBase  //  by  Ashton-Tate,  and  TIM  by 
Innovative  Software.  In  addition,  a  database 
system  called  PC  Base  is  included  in  this 
package,  $95, 

PC  Pai  Introduces  the  first-time  computer 
user  to  the  IBM  pc,  PC  Pal  is  actually  five 
programs  in  one;  (!)  The  pc  keyboard,  (2) 
Spreadsheets,  (3)  Word  processing,  (4)  The 
Basic  interpreter,  and  (5)  Hardware,  $39,95 
PC  Tutor.  Instructs  on  computer  concepts, 
disks,  files,  and  devices  and  delves  deeply  into 


Prospect  Manager 


Want  to  organize  your  sales  efforts? 
Here's  a  program  that  can  do  it  for  you 
and  at  an  amazing  price.  Make  prompt 
responses  to  leads,  set  up  automatic 
contact  intervals,  call  back  when  you  are  supposed  to,  maintain  a  detail¬ 
ed  ledger  for  each  prospect.  All  this  and  more  for .  $129. 

Optional  expense  tracking  module . . . . . . .  $50. 

Optional  A/R  and  Commission  tracking  module .  $50. 


B.  Writer 


Look  at  the  features!  Character  and  tine  inser¬ 
tion.  auto  page  numbering,  right  margin 
justification,  full  screen  editing,  underlining, 
compressed  print,  double  wide  print,  block 
move  and  delete  and  much  more.  Mow  con¬ 
sider  the  price!  The  icing  on  the  cake  is  that 
this  includes  both  source  code  and  compiled  version.  Look  ai  what  the  users  say; 
0  Writer  is  a  good  WP  buy;  it  a  right  justified  basic  purchaser1 

—Richard  Larratt.  Dialog  Magazine  Toronto,  Canada 
".  .  .one  ol  the  best  buys  on  the  software  market  today  " 

—Doyle  Corder,  Texas  Cotton  Marketing 

$39. 


First  Base 

Data  Base 

Management  System 


*  Primary  feature  is  ease  of  use  *  Not  a  simple  mail  type  database  but 
powerful  enough  to  handle  needs  such  as  G/L  P/Fh  A/R,  A/P  and 
Inventory  applications. 

*  Easily  tied  in  and  driven  by  Basic  *  samples  with  docs, 

*  Built-in  indexed  access  system  *  Up  to  6  files  open  at  once. 

*  Create  files.  Add-Change-Delete  records  using  auto  screens. 

*  Post  data  to  numeric  fields  using  automatic  calculations, 

*  Convert  files  to  new  format  without  loosing  existing  data, 

*  Select  subset  files  based  on  up  to  20  field  relations. 

*  Sort  files  on  up  to  20  fields  at  one  time. 

*  Powerful  report  generator  includes  automatic:  Headings.  Date, 
Totals,  Subtotals  -  works  with  sorts  &  subset  files, 

*  N-across  mailing  label  capabilities  *  Automatic  formal  business  letter 
generation, 

*  Can  retire  expired  records  to  a  history  file  and  recall  later, 

*  Rapid  access  to  any  record  *  Complete  documentation  manual  with 
examples  included, 

*  FIRST  BASE  has  been  improved  and  proven  in  business  applications 
for  4  years! 

$195. 


Automated  tn formation  Systems 
1503  Ave.  J,  Suite  203 
Lubbock,  Texas  79401 
(806)  762-6604 


Money  back  guarentee  on 
First  Base  and  Prospect  Manager. 


for  the  /BM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


15? 


add  and  subtract  fractions.  Third  through 
sixth  grade  mathematics  textbook  objectives. 
Colorful  graphics  and  musical  sounds  help 


Education 


MS-DOS  commands  and  topics.  The  total 
package  consists  of  an  easy-to-understand  in¬ 
struction  manual  and  a  disk.  $59.95. 

Computer- Advanced  Ideas 
Berkeley,  CA 

The  Game  Show.  Teaches  information  and 
essential  thinking  skills  in  a  game  of  clues  and 
target  concepts.  Authoring  system  tailors 
The  Game  Show  to  childrens  educational 
needs.  Ready-made  subject  disks  offer  over 
thirty  topics  each.  $39.95. 

Master  Match.  Match  wits  with  the  com¬ 
puter  or  a  friend  as  Master  Match  quiz  show 
emcee  invites  you  to  find  logical  matches  in 
images  and  words  under  numbered  mystery 
squares.  Players  use  visual  memory,  factual 
knowledge,  and  reasoning  skills  to  win 
points.  $39.95. 

Tic  Tac  Show.  An  animated  quiz  show  emcee 
interacts  with  one  or  two  players  of  any  age 
as  the  program  entertains,  motivates,  and 
teaches.  Tic  Tac  Show  comes  with  lessons  in 
fourteen  subjects,  from  myths  to  math. 
$39.95. 

Computer  Labs  of  America,  Inc. 

San  Diego,  CA 

Startup.  Includes  all  the  necessary  tools  to 
provide  rapid  learning  with  hands-on  in¬ 
struction  of  Lotus's  2-2-3,  VisiCalc,  Super- 
Calc,  WordStar,  PC-DOS,  dBase  II.  Review 
notes  included.  Each  disk  $199. 

Counterpoint  Software,  Inc. 

Minneapolis,  MN 

Early  Games  for  Young  Children.  A  set  of 
nine  games  designed  to  teach  children  ages  2 
1/2  to  6  basic  skills:  matching  numbers, 
counting  blocks,  adding  and  subtracting 
stacks  of  blocks,  matching  letters,  working 
with  the  alphabet,  typing  names,  comparing 
shapes,  and  drawing  colorful  pictures.  No 
adult  supervision  required;  picture  menu 
gives  children  control.  $29.95. 

Early  Games  Music.  Four  games  encourage 
children  ages  2  to  12  to  experiment  with  mu¬ 
sic.  They  learn  to  play  tunes  or  make  up  their 
own  using  the  computer  to  record  and  play 
back  the  music.  They  are  introduced  to  note 
names  and  the  keys  of  the  piano  and  can 
combine  graphics  with  their  music.  $29.95. 
Piece  of  Cake.  At  the  bakery,  children  learn 
to  add,  subtract,  multiply,  and  divide  cakes 
as  they  come  out  of  the  oven.  In  Catchacake 
players  go  through  the  same  operations — at 
high  speeds,  so  the  cake  won't  splat  on  the 
floor.  Challenging  fun  for  elementary  ages. 
$29.95. 

Fraction  Factory.  At  the  Fraction  Factory 
children  can  see  and  describe  fractions,  find 
equal  values  with  different  denominators, 
multiply  whole  numbers  by  a  fraction,  and 


children  visualize  and  understand  the  con¬ 
cepts.  $29.95. 

Matchmaker.  Playfully  guides  children 
through  a  series  of  discrimination  games  in¬ 
volving  colors,  shapes,  sizes,  and  directions. 
Musical  sounds  and  colorful  graphics  help 
children  understand  why  their  responses  are 
right  or  wrong.  Matching  games  are  fun  for 
learning  prereading  skills.  Even  two-year- 
olds  need  no  adult  supervision.  $29.95. 
Quizagon.  A  family  game,  or  a  party  game, 
that  challenges  players  with  over  6,000  ques¬ 
tions  in  the  categories  of  the  sciences,  sports, 
entertainment  and  arts,  and  potpourri.  Two 
disks,  four  sides  to  this  game  of  knowledge, 
strategy,  and  luck.  $39.95. 

Courseware,  Inc. 

San  Diego,  CA 

PC  Master.  Allows  users  to  teach  themselves 
to  use  their  pc,  provides  an  overview  of  the 
many  practical  applications  for  the  personal 
computer,  and  gives  users  hands-on  experi¬ 
ence  with  the  four  most  widely  used  applica¬ 
tions — word  processing,  database  manage¬ 
ment,  communications,  and  spreadsheets. 
$79.50. 

Davidson  &  Associates 
Rancho  Palos  Verdes,  CA 
Speed  Reader  II.  A  complete  reading  course. 
Its  exercises  will  build  speed  and  comprehen¬ 
sion  with  just  thirty  minutes  practice  per  day. 
Speed  Reader  II  contains  five  activities  with 
thirty-five  interesting  reading  selections,  each 
with  questions  to  check  comprehension,  an 
editor  that  allows  you  to  enter  your  own  se¬ 
lections,  and  a  grade-level  analyzer  to  deter¬ 
mine  reading  level.  $69.95. 

Word  Attack.  A  vocabulary-building  system 
with  four  educationally  well-designed  and 
graphically  appealing  exercises,  including  a 
fast-paced  arcade  game.  Words  and  sen¬ 
tences  illustrating  usage  are  presented  on 
nine  different  levels  (ages  8  through  adult), 
using  data  files  of  675  words.  It  contains  an 
easy  to  use  editor.  Additional  data  disks  are 
available.  $49,95. 

Math  Blaster.  Presents  addition,  subtraction, 
multiplication,  division,  fractions,  and  deci¬ 
mal  operations  in  exercises  that  include  a 
fast-paced  arcade  game.  Extensive  data  files 
contain  over  600  problems  for  students  ages 
6  through  12.  Master  Blasters  editor  makes  it 
easy  to  enter  additional  problems.  $49.95. 

DesignWare,  Inc. 

San  Francisco,  CA 

Creature  Creator.  An  educational  game  that 
allows  children  to  create  dancing  creatures 
and  practice  pattern  analysis,  a  skill  basic  to 
reading  and  mathematics.  Once  formed,  the 
creature  can  be  easily  programmed  to  hop, 


stomp,  wave,  roar,  and  make  other  motions. 
The  child  can  then  play  a  game  with  the  com¬ 
puter  in  which  the  computer  makes  one  crea¬ 
ture  dance  and  the  child  must  program  his  or 
her  creature  to  do  exactly  the  same  dance. 
While  this  was  designed  for  children  four 
years  and  older,  at  the  most  difficult  level  it  is 
a  challenging  game  even  for  adults.  $39.95. 
Crypto  Cube.  Designed  for  players  8  years 
and  up.  A  challenging  word  puzzle  game  for 
one  or  more  players.  The  game  has  a  rotating 
cube,  four  sides  of  which  have  a  grid  similar 
to  that  found  in  a  crossword  puzzle.  Hidden 
behind  the  squares  of  the  grid  are  the  letters 
of  the  words.  Players  take  turns  uncovering 
the  letters  and  trying  to  guess  the  words. 
Crypto  Cube  comes  with  fifty  lists  of  20 
words  each,  grouped  by  categories  such  as 
animals,  artists,  writers,  countries,  and  food 
groups.  You  can  also  create  your  own  list, 
from  which  the  computer  will  generate  a  va¬ 
riety  of  puzzles.  $39.95. 

Spellicopter.  An  action  spelling  game  for  chil¬ 
dren  6  years  and  up  that  tests  spelling  skills 
and  visual  memory.  Pilot  your  helicopter 
through  skies  crowded  with  balloons,  thun¬ 
der  clouds,  and  other  obstacles  in  order  to 
rescue  the  stranded  letters  and  carry  them 
back  to  the  landing  pad.  Each  spelling  word 
has  a  context  sentence  associated  with  it.  If 
you  misspell  the  word,  the  correct  spelling  is 
displayed.  Included  are  the  400  most  com¬ 
monly  used  English  words.  $39.95. 

Developmental  Learning  Materials 
Allen,  TX 

Arcademic  Skill  Builders  in  Math.  Alien  Ad¬ 
dition,  Minus  Mission,  Meteor  Multiplica¬ 
tion,  Demolition  Division,  Alligator  Mix 
(addition  and  subtraction),  Dragon  Mix 
(multiplication  and  division).  Fast  action  and 
colorful  graphics  of  an  arcade  game.  Features 
a  combination  of  microcomputer  software 
and  print  materials.  Separate  skill  builders, 
$39.  Total  program,  $220. 

Digital  Marketing  Corp. 

Walnut  Creek,  CA 

Hyper  T yper.  A  personal  typing  teacher  for 
anyone  who  needs  to  type  quickly  and  accu¬ 
rately.  Hyper  Typer  teaches  the  fundamen¬ 
tals  of  typing  or  helps  transfer  skills  from  the 
typewriter  or  ten-key  pad  to  computer  key¬ 
board.  $29.95. 

Edu-Ware  Services,  Inc. 

Agoura  Hills.  CA 

Algebra,  Volumes  1  through  3 .  Offers  a  selec¬ 
tion  of  learning  styles.  Work  sample  prob¬ 
lems,  solve  equations  step-by-step,  study 
rules,  or  read  discussions  of  concepts.  Hi-res 
color  displays  flowchart  progress.  $39.95. 

Electronic  Courseware  Systems,  Inc. 
Champaign,  IL 

Aural  Skill  Trainer.  Designed  to  improve  au- 


SOftalk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


m 


ALL  YOU  REALLY  NEED  . . .  Practical  UCSD  Pascal  tram  NCI 


Now,  for  a  very  Friendly  price,  you  can  write 
your  own  UCSD  Pasco!  software  on  the  IBM 
PC,  NCI's  Practical  Pascal  Package  makes  it 
simple  to  program  in  UCSD  Pascal,  the  natural 
choice  of  professional  software  develop  el’s 
worldwide,  even  in  die  most  remote  locations. 


(loppy  disks,  Vou  also  get  a  full  screen  editor, 
a  file  manager,  graphics  capability,  RAMdiak 
support  and  a  guide  which  explains  in  clear, 
down-to-earth  language  how  U>  use  the 
p-System. 

litis  is  a  system  you  can  grow  with.  All  the 
tools  to  meet  your  nevv  programming 
requirements  aie  available  from  NCI. 

In  addition  to  the  SUM  PC,  the  NCI  Practical 
Pascal  Package  is  compatible  with  Corona, 
Columbia,  Eagle,  Compaq  and  Hyperion, 


For  all  you  need  to  program  in  UCSD  Pascal  or 
for  dealership  information  call  or  write: 


The  Practical  Pascal  Package  combines 
a  superior  Pascal  compiler  with  the  easiest, 
fastest  and  most  reJ table  p-System  on  the 
market  for  the  IBM  PC  and  compatibles.  This 
package  lets  you  compile  without  changing 


Network  Consulting  Inc, 
Discovery  Dirk,  Suite  HO.  3700  CUmute  Way, 
Burnaby,  B.C.  Canada  V5C  4M1 
(0041  430-34tit) 


‘  UCSD  Pascal  is  a  trade  mark  of  the  Regents  of  the|  University  of  California,  p-System  is  a  trade  mark  of  SofTech  Microsystems.  Inc.  and  is  used  pursuant  to  a  license 
granted  by  Snftech  Microsystems.  Inc.  |0M  PC  is  a  trade  mark  of  International  Business  Machines  Corp. 


Education 


ral  skills  in  the  perception  and  identification 
of  intervals,  basic  chords,  and  seventh 
chords.  Hard-copy  instructor  reports  availa¬ 
ble  with  printer.  Diagnostic  information  is 
available  to  the  learner  at  the  completion  of 
each  lesson.  $99.95. 

Basic  Chords .  Designed  to  improve  aural 
skills  in  the  perception  and  identification  of 
basic  chords.  Hard-copy  reports  may  be  ob¬ 
tained  with  the  use  of  a  printer.  Diagnostic 
information  is  available  to  the  learner  at  the 
^  completion  of  each  lesson.  $39.95. 

ECS  Computerized  Gradebook.  Designed  to 
;  provide  a  statistically  accurate  method  of 
;  keeping  students'  scores  and  assigning 
■  grades.  Up  to  fifty  names,  ten  scores  each. 
Computed  final  score  and  letter  grades,  con¬ 
version  to  standard  scores,  scores  individu- 
*]  ally  weighted,  distribution  of  any  score  set 
with  mean  and  standard  deviation,  letter 
grades  assigned.  $49.95. 

Elements  of  Mathematics.  For  individuals  in¬ 
terested  in  teaching  mathematics  fundamen- 
i  tals  using  computers.  Includes  adding 
fractions  (common  denominators),  adding 
fractions  (unlike  denominators),  reducing 
fractions,  and  student  recordkeeping  option. 
$49.95. 

Elements  of  Music.  For  individuals  interested 
in  teaching  music  fundamentals  using  com- 
i  puters.  Developed  for  use  with  children  and 
j  nonmusic  majors  who  wish  to  learn  the  ele¬ 
ments  of  music  at  an  entry  level.  Includes 
note  names,  pitches  on  the  keyboard,  key 
>  signatures,  and  student  recordkeeping. 
$99.95. 

Intervals.  Designed  to  improve  aural  skills  in 
;  the  perception  and  identification  of  intervals. 
Hard-copy  reports  may  be  obtained  with  the 
use  of  a  printer.  Diagnostic  information  is 
<  available  to  the  learner  at  the  completion  of 

*  each  lesson.  $39.95. 

EuroPro,  Inc. 

Petaluma,  CA 

TMGame.  Sharpens  children's  and  adults' 
math  skills.  Four  functions  available  (addi¬ 
tion,  subtraction,  multiplication,  division) 
with  three  levels  of  difficulty.  TMGame  in¬ 
i’  eludes  a  graphical  timer,  multicolored  ani- 
;  mated  screens,  and  classical  music.  Includes 

*  one  disk  and  instructions.  $30. 

Edubas  I.  Designed  for  those  who  want  to 
learn  how  to  program  the  pc  in  Basic.  Edu¬ 
bas  I  includes  three  disks  with  lessons,  exer¬ 
cises,  and  instructions.  $95. 

Edubas  II.  A  complement  to  Edubas  I  that 
unlocks  the  advanced  functions  of  Basic  such 
as  file  manipulation,  strings,  and  graphics. 
Edubas  II  includes  three  disks  with  lessons, 
exercises,  and  instructions.  $9 5. Edubas  I  &  II 
$170. 

-  Edubas  III.  A  pc  Basic  trainer  and  comple¬ 


ment  to  Edubas  I  &  //.Teaches  the  additional 
features  available  in  the  new  Basic  2.0.  Edu¬ 
bas  III  includes  one  disk  (320K)  with  lessons, 
exercises,  and  instructions.  $50.  Edubas  /,  //, 
&  III:  $190. 

Fliptrack  Learning  Systems 
Glen  Ellyn,  IL 

How  to  Operate  Your  Computer  Under  CP/ 
M-86.  An  audio  tutorial  for  first-time  CP/M- 
86  users.  Consisting  of  three  audio  cassettes 
and  an  indexed  operator's  guide,  the  course 
steps  the  user  through  the  most  important 
CP/M-86  commands  and  procedures  for 
managing  disk  storage  and  creating  and  han¬ 
dling  files.  $75. 

How  to  Operate  the  IBM  PC-XT.  An  audio 
tutorial  with  four  cassettes.  After  course 
completion,  participant  will  be  able  to  use 
the  keyboard  and  PC-DOS  version  2.0  com¬ 
mands;  format,  copy  and  check  disks;  copy, 
rename,  and  delete  files;  print  spooling;  use  a 
fixed  disk  drive;  use  tree-structured  directo¬ 
ries;  create  batch-processing  files,  text  files, 
and  Basic  program  files.  Includes  operator's 
guide.  $75. 

How  to  Operate  the  IBM  Personal  Com¬ 
puter.  A  carefully  sequenced  audio-tutorial 
with  three  cassettes.  After  course  comple¬ 
tion,  participants  will  be  able  to  set  up  the 
computer  and  use  the  keyboard  and  PC- 
DOS  1.1  or  2.0;  format,  copy,  and  check 
disks;  copy,  rename,  and  delete  files;  use  a 
hard  disk  drive;  and  create  batch-processing 
files,  text  files,  and  Basic  program  files.  In¬ 
cludes  users'  guide.  $57. 

How  to  Use  Easy  Writer  II.  A  carefully  se¬ 
quenced  audio  tutorial  with  three  cassettes. 
After  course  completion,  participant  will  be 
able  to  create  documents,  edit  documents, 
format  documents,  print  documents,  and  use 
essential  Easy  Writer  commands.  Includes  us¬ 
er's  guide.  $57. 

How  to  Use  Lotus  1-2-3.  Will  quickly  have 
you  creating  your  own  models,  using  the  1-2 - 
3  database,  and  graphing  your  results.  Step 
by  step,  you'll  learn  about  worksheet  com¬ 
mands,  printing,  and  graphing.  Designed  for 
either  the  intermediate  or  first-time  computer 
user.  $75. 

Focus  Media,  Inc. 

Garden  City,  NY 

The  Basics  of  Basic.  Complete  package  of 
twelve  lessons  guides  you  through  introduc¬ 
tory  Basic  programming  in  easy-to-follow 
screens  with  beautiful  graphics.  Extensive 
documentation  with  review  is  provided.  $99. 

Friendlysoft,  Inc. 

Arlington,  TX 

PC  Introduction  Set.  The  three  diskette  cure 
for  computer  phobia.  Includes  four  demon¬ 
stration  programs,  seventeen  learning 
games,  and  eight  home  finance  utilities. 
$49.95. 


Harvard  Associates,  Inc. 

Somerville,  MA 

PC  Logo.  A  full  implementation  of  the  Logo 
language  for  the  pc.  An  ideal  interactive  lan¬ 
guage  with  graphics,  fully  integrated  editor, 
list  structure,  and  recursion.  Complete  tuto¬ 
rial  and  technical  manual  included  with  lan¬ 
guage  and  utilities  disks.  Runs  with  MS-DOS 
in  64K,  expandable  to  128K.  $199.95. 

Turtle  Tot.  A  small,  programmable  robot 
that  runs  in  Basic  and  Logo.  Moves,  blinks  its 
"eyes,"  sounds  its  two-note  horn,  and  draws. 
With  its  built-in  RS-232  port,  the  Tot  is  con¬ 
trollable  from  virtually  any  microcomputer. 
Comes  complete  with  ten-color  pen  set,  com¬ 
plete  instruction  manual.  $299.95. 

Individual  Software,  Inc. 

Redwood  City,  CA 

Tutorial  Set.  An  interactive,  self-paced,  two- 
part  course  that  teaches  first-time  and  ad¬ 
vanced  users  how  to  operate  and  use  the  pc. 
The  Instructor  teaches  initial  operating 
stages,  including  how  to  get  information  in 
and  out  of  the  pc,  how  to  boot  the  system, 
and  more.  Professor  DOS  teaches  the  DOS 
commands,  concepts,  and  applications,  in¬ 
cluding  using  DOS  2.0.  Each  program  uses 
menus,  graphic  illustrations,  and  allows  us¬ 
ers  to  practice  and  experiment  freely.  In¬ 
cludes  user  handbook.  $94.95. 

The  Instructor.  A  pc-familiarizing  tool  that 
takes  the  novice  through  the  initial  opera¬ 
tions  stages.  Through  a  series  of  graphic-sup¬ 
ported  presentations.  The  Instructor  teaches 
the  use  and  operation  of  function  keyes,  con¬ 
trol  keys,  and  the  numeric  keypad,  as  well  as 
the  typewriter  keys.  Users  learn  how  to  per¬ 
form  basic  system  functions,  how  to  use 
menus,  and  how  to  perform  special  key  com¬ 
mands  to  transport  themselves  from  one  set 
of  lessons  to  another.  Exercises  are  presented 
lesson-to-lesson  or  can  be  selected  from  a 
menu.  Includes  a  user's  guide.  $44.95. 
Professor  DOS.  An  interactive,  self-paced, 
menu-driven  program  that  teaches  DOS  to 
both  novice  and  experienced  users.  Simulat¬ 
ing  DOS  operations,  the  program  guides  us¬ 
ers  step-by-step  through  each  DOS 
command,  including  DOS  2.0,  Edlin,  DOS 
concepts  and  applications,  and  DOS  editing 
functions.  Users  are  free  to  experiment  and 
practice  as  they  learn.  Uses  graphic  images, 
sound,  and  color.  Comes  on  two  interactive 
disks  and  includes  a  user's  guide.  $59.95. 

Inet  Corp. 

Sunnyvale,  CA 

SpeedRead- h  Teaches  rapid  reading.  Any¬ 
one  who  reads,  whether  for  pleasure,  school, 
work,  or  just  to  keep  abreast  of  develop¬ 
ments  in  a  profession  or  hobby,  can  benefit 
from  SpeedRead- (-.  Read  from  5  to  5,000 
wpm.  $79.95. 


soffcalk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


Our  vision 
Peripheral 


Yours  Can  Be,  too, 

with  Multi-Tech  Systems'  New  Modem 

For  The  IBM  PC 


Expand  your  horizons.  Connect 
your  IBM  PC  to  San  DiegoT  San 
Antonio,  Savannah,  and  points 
between.  Link  up  to  New  York  for 
the  Dow  Jones  News,  or  check  out 
The  Source  in  D.C.  Dial  up 
CompuServe  in  Ohio,  or  the 
corporate  mainframe  downtown. 
Swap  programs  with  your  pal  in 
Seattle.  Transfer  files  with  your 
friend  next  door. 

Share  the  latest  excitement  at 
Multi-Tech:  the  MT212PC 
Intelligent  Modem  for  the  IBM  PC. 

•  Plugs  into  any  IBM  PC 
expansion  slot. 

•  Transmits  at  0-300  or  1 200 
bits  per  second. 

Tf.iHhmi.ifks  HUM  PiHSiumil  CiMnfiiiltrr  l.itlM  J-'tJ  IfflefftHHdnal 
Uiisjni^N  Mji  FNhia  CortwrBUfflT.  Dm  Junira  Ni’wsu  Ni-[inLv.if  ifi!f 
vfMJ  [)hhw  ,Ihhih“.  Jt  Ci'unjMrkv,  In*:,  1  SuurciJ  Hunri^  tclts&jfh 
|i«i.r[>rLi  r  {..Iff]  H  Mill  Mjrt.  .1  i.LitiSutiiilv  Hfl  Ilk:  (hMlkrfkj  Unjust 
AwtCiiflKiji  fin  CunQluSeive  ComfsiiStfrio  I  nf or  mail  Hit 
vih  fklFinsum  (.h'llirtflhuS,  fill 


•  Automatically  dials,  answers, 
hangs  up.  redials. 

•  Stores  phone  numbers, 
parameters,  log-on  sequences. 

•  Creates,  stores,  prints,  displays, 
and  transfers  files. 

•  No  IBM  serial  card  needed . . . 
price  includes  all  software. 


At  Mulfi-Tech  Systems,  our  future 
Is  new  markets  for  us,  and  new 
products  for  you.  Since  1 971 , 
we've  been  building  acoustic 
couplers,  direct-connect  modems, 
testers,  multiplexers,  and  now  this 
newest  generation  of  intelligent 
modems. 

The  MT21 2 PC  modem  has  a  two- 
year  warranty  and  a  suggested 
retail  price,  including  companion 
software,  of  just  $549.  For  more 
information,  write  to  Multi-Tech 
Systems,  Inc.,  82  Second  Avenue 
SE,  New  Brighton,  Minnesota 
551 1 2.  Or  phone  us  at 
612-631-3550, 

TWX  91  0-563-3610 


MULTI-TECH  SYSTEMS 

The  Peripheral  vision  People 

See  us  at 


Booth  3035 


Why  buy  an  IBM  XT  when  you  can  buy 
an  IBM  PC  or  compatible, 
our  Pegasus  XT  Conversion  Kit, 
and  save  yourself  almost  $1,600? 

For  $1,295  you  can  buy  our  internal  10  megabyte 
hard  disk  system  installed  in  an  IBM  PC 
or  compatible  of  your  choice. 


Think  about  it-  When  you  consider 
buying  an  IBM  XT  or  XT  look-alike, 
you’re  after  large  storage,  the  con¬ 
venience  of  IBM  compatible  software, 
and  the  peace  of  mind  associated  with 
a  quality  product.  But  one  thing  you're 
not  looking  for  is  paying  more  than 
you  have  to. 


The  Savings 

ff  you  buy  an  IB  M  XT,  it’s  going  to 
cost  you  $4,995  for  the  XT  system  unit. 
You'll  get  10  megabytes  of  hard  disk 
storage,  one  320  Kbytes  floppy  disk 
drive,  8  slots,  a  $120  asynchronous 
communication  adaptor,  128K  of 
RAM  and  the  three  IBM  mtials. 

We  recommend  instead,  that  you 
buy  the  IBM  PC  for  $2,104.  You  11  get 
one  320  Kbyte  floppy  disk  drive,  5 
slots,  64 K  of  RAM,  the  same  three 
IBM  initials,  a  space  for  your  dealer  to 
put  the  Pegasus  XT  Conversion  Kit, 
and  an  extra  $2,891  to  buy  it  with.  But 
since  the  Pegasus  XT  Conversion  Kit 
costs  only  $  1 ,295  installed,  you’ll  have 
an  ex  tra  $  1 , 596  —  almost  $  1 ,600  — 
left  over.  With  many  compatibles 
you'll  have  even  more. 

But  if  you  already  own  an  IBM  PC 
and  were  thinking  you'd  just  get  the 


IBM  is  &  registered  trademark  of 
International  Business  Machines.  Inc, 

XT  Conversion  Kil  is  a  trademark 
of  Great  bakes  Computer  Peripherals.  Inc- 


XT  expansion  chassis,  we  have  a  sur¬ 
prise  for  you.  If  you  add  the  $  1 ,295 
cost  of  the  Pegasus  XT  Conversion  Kit 
to  the  $2,  KM  price  of  an  IBM  PC],  you 
can  have  a  second  computer  —  in¬ 
stead  of  a  dumb  box  —  for  less  than 
the  price  of  the  XT  expansion  chassis. 

Hard  Disk  Quality 

Now,  before  you  start  thinking  that 
IBM's  hard  disk  is  better  than  ours, 
remember  that  IBM  doesn't  make 
their  own  hard  disk  for  the  IBM  XT. 
They  go  into  the  marketplace,  just  like 
we  do,  and  strike  the  best  price  they 
can.  If  you  were  to  buy  an  IBM  XT 
your  hard  disk  might  come  from  one 


of  four  manufacturers.  It's  possible,  in 
fact,  that  the  IBM  XT  might  have  the 
same  hard  disk  that  you'd  get  in  our 
Pegasus  XT  Conversion  Kit. 

The  Role  of  the  Controller 

But  the  hard  disk  is  not  the  whole 
story.  It  takes  a  controller  card  to  gel 
your  files  from  the  hard  disk  to  your 
computer  so  you  can  use  them. 

The  IBM  XT  has  a  good  controller 
card.  Unfortunately  ills  not  designed 
to  take  advantage  of  some  of  the  ad- 

PEGASUS 

A  DIVISION  OF 

GREAT  LAKES 

COMPUTER  PERIPHERALS,  INC 

2290  West  Higgins  Road.  Suite  245 
Hoffman  Estates.  Illinois  60195 


vanees  In  hard  disk  technology.  Our 
controller  card  will  work  with  our  10 
megabyte  hard  disk  all  the  way  up  to 
our  140  megabyte  hard  disk  —  and 
everything  in  between.  With  the  IBM 
XT  controller,  you're  limited  to  four 
manufacturers.  The  Pegasus  con¬ 
troller  board,  on  the  other  hand,  con¬ 
figures  to  whatever  hard  disk  you  may 
want  to  install  in  the  future.  There  is 
virtually  no  limit  on  hard  disk  size  or 
number  of  manufacturers  you  can  use. 


Larger  Disks 

Pegasus  offers  an  entire  line  of  hard 
disks.  You  can  expand  your  IBM  PC 
far  beyond  the  storage  of  the  IBM  XT. 
You  can  add  our  23  megabyte  hard 
disk  for  only  $  1,995.  or  our  40  mega¬ 
byte  for  only  $51)0  more.  And  if  you 
really  need  storage,  we  offer  a  65  and 
140  megabyte  hard  disk  that  slides 
right  into  the  same  space  that  IBM  and 
the  compatible  manufacturers  pul  their 
10  megabytes. 

So,  before  you  decide  to  spend  more 
money  than  you  have  to,  consider  the 
Pegasus  XT  Conversion  Kit,  You'll  get 
dealer  support,  the  same  90  day  war¬ 
ranty  IBM  gives,  and  have  enough 
money  left  aver  to  buy  one  of  our 
larger  hard  disks.  And  isn't  larger 
storage  why  you  were  looking  at  the 
hard  disk  in  the  first  place?  Contact 
your  computer  dealer  today. 


In  Illinois  (312)  884-7272 
800-323-6836 
Dealer  Inquiries  Invited 


Education 


Jefferson  Software /Systems  Design 
Associates,  Inc. 

Charleston,  WV 

Career  Directions.  For  those  who  are  prepar¬ 
ing  to  enter  college  or  are  entering  the  job 
market.  The  occupational  database  used  in 
Career  Directions  analyzes  student  interest 
for  more  than  460  specific  occupations  that 
range  from  high-level  professions  to  entry- 
level  jobs.  Career  Directions  can  be  used  as 
either  a  standalone  career  guidance  program 
or  in  conjunction  with  other  guidance  pro¬ 
grams  currently  being  implemented.  $59.95. 

Krell  Software  Corp. 

Stony  Brook,  NY 

Krells  Basic  Educational  Skills  Tutor  Instruc¬ 
tional  Modules:  Mathematical  Topics.  Multi¬ 
disk  series  teaches  basic  concepts  and  ideas  of 
mathematics.  Each  of  these  programs  maxi¬ 
mizes  student-computer  interactivity  to  fos¬ 
ter  understanding  and  to  guide  progress  as 
students  demonstrate  mastery  of  the  lexicon 
of  mathematics.  Instruction  and  testing  ma¬ 
terials  are  systematically  coordinated  in  an 
entertaining  context  to  ensure  student  in¬ 
volvement.  $899. 

Plato's  Cave.  For  aspiring  scientists  of  all 
ages.  Players  probe  Plato's  Cave  with  light 
beams  as  they  explore  the  relation  between 
illusion  and  reality  and  the  relation  between 
evidence  and  inference.  Difficulty  levels  suit¬ 
able  for  all.  $49.95. 

Botticelli.  A  new  approach  to  a  classic  game. 
Players  compete  to  teach  the  computer  how 
best  to  interrogate  their  opponents  to  dis¬ 
cover  which  famous  people,  characters  in 
fiction,  mythological  beings,  animals,  places, 
or  things  their  fellow  players  are  thinking  of. 
A  delightful  introduction  to  the  world  of  arti¬ 
ficial  intelligence  and  the  art  of  questioning. 
Variety  of  subject  areas.  $34.95. 

Adventures  in  Flesh,  by  Fred  Williams,  in¬ 
forms  players,  ages  12  and  up,  about  the  de¬ 
tails  of  human  anatomy  and  physiology. 
Adventure  game  format.  $49.95. 

Isaac  Newton  and  F.  C.  Newton.  Isaac  New¬ 
ton  challenges  players  to  assemble  evidence 
and  discern  the  underlying  "laws  of  nature" 
that  have  produced  this  evidence.  Players 
propose  experiments  to  determine  if  new 
data  conform  to  the  laws  of  nature.  F.  G. 
Newton  presents  all  data  in  graphic  form. 
Players  select  difficulty  levels  from  child  to 
skilled  adult.  $49.95. 

Time  Traveler.  Using  the  Time  Machine, 
players  face  a  series  of  historical  environ¬ 
ments  in  which  they  build  alliances  and 
struggle  with  ruling  powers.  Each  game  con¬ 
fronts  players  with  complex  decisions  and 
demands  for  real-time  action.  $24.95. 
Odyssey  in  Time.  An  advanced  form  of  Time 


Traveler ,  adding  ten  historical  eras.  Each 
game  is  different  and  may  be  interrupted  and 
saved  at  any  point  for  later  play.  The  player 
must  now  contend  with  the  Adversary.  Like 
the  player,  the  Adversary  also  moves 
through  time  and  space.  $39.95. 

Linear  Equations.  Thorough  introduction  to 
the  world  of  linear  equations.  Join  Detective 
Ranch  Holmes  as  he  explains  the  most  ele¬ 
mentary  concepts  about  equations:  what 
they  are,  how  we  use  them,  how  we  build 
them,  and  how  we  solve  them.  Designed  for 
self-instruction.  $119.95. 

The  Learning  Co. 

Menlo  Park,  CA 

Magic  Spells.  Children  spell  and  unscramble 
words  with  fourteen  word  lists.  Players  can 
tailor  the  game  to  any  level  by  creating  their 
own  lists.  Ages  six  to  ten.  $34.95. 

Moptown  Hotel  In  seven  increasingly  chal¬ 
lenging  games  children  test  hypotheses,  use 
analogies,  and  develop  strategic  thinking 
skills.  Children  arrange  Moppets  in  Mop- 
towns  fantasy  world.  Sequel  to  Moptown 
Parade.  Ages  nine  to  adult.  $39.95. 
Moptown  Parade.  A  progression  of  seven 
playful  games  designed  around  colorful 
mopped  characters  teach  logic,  strategy  de¬ 
velopment,  and  pattern  recognition.  Chil¬ 
dren  arrange  and  match  Moppet  characters 
in  the  imaginary  world  of  Moptown.  Ages 
six  to  ten.  $39.95. 

Learning  Tools 

Cambridge,  MA 

Curriculum  Management  System.  Central¬ 
izes  and  coordinates  instructional  and  service 
resources,  including  textbooks,  learning  ac¬ 
tivities,  library  materials,  films,  and  so  on. 
Can  be  used  to  create  individualized  plans. 
$295. 

Individualized  Planning  System.  Locates, 
manages,  and  organizes  user-defined  infor¬ 
mation  on  each  individual  client  or  student. 
Prints  individualized  plans.  Confidentiality 
is  maintained  through  password  and  authori¬ 
zation  levels.  $495. 

Administrative  Planning  System.  Provides 
interactive  access  to  small  or  large  client  or 
student  database  and  prints  information  for 
program  planning;  local,  state,  and  federal 
reporting;  and  purposes  specified  by  user. 
Can  be  used  with  Individualized  Planning 
System.  $1,195. 

Mace,  Inc. 

Madison,  WI 

Statistician's  Mace.  Calculates  descriptive 
statistics,  multiple  regression,  correlations, 
several  analyses  of  variance,  nonparametric 
tests,  and  other  statistics  used  by  scientists, 
business  researchers,  engineers.  Accepts  key¬ 
board  or  disk  file  input.  Requires  128K.  Eval¬ 
uation  version,  $30.  Complete  package, 
$195. 


MicroLab,  Inc. 

Highland  Park,  CA 
Highrise.  Build  a  tower  of  blocks.  Twenty 
levels  of  block  balancing  and  fun.  Play 
against  the  clock  or  instructor  mode  with  no 
time  and  scoring.  $30. 

English  SAT.  Fast,  effective  way  to  improve 
verbal  SAT  scores.  $30. 

Math  SAT.  Fast,  effective  way  to  improve 
math  SAT  scores.  $30. 

Morgan  Computing  Corporation 

Dale,  TX 

Math  Wizard.  Arithmetic  problem-solving 
for  the  early  school  child.  Random  genera¬ 
tion  of  problems.  Up  to  five  difficulty  levels. 
Uses  color  and  sound  (both  optional).  At  the 
higher  levels  uses  the  natural  order  of  result 
input.  Requires  64K  RAM.  $19.95. 

NorFork  Systems 

Laurel  Springs,  NJ 

Word-Score.  Challenging  Hang-man  type 
word  game.  One  to  four  persons  can  play, 
each  at  their  own  level  of  difficulty;  800 
words  supplied  in  first  four  levels.  Fifth  level 
enables  parent  or  educator  to  preload  specific 
lesson  words.  Requires  color /graphics.  Ba- 
sicA.  $29.95. 

Opportunities  for  Learning,  Inc. 
Chatsworth,  CA 

A  catalog  of  educational  software  designed 
for  the  home,  with  courseware  covering 
math,  science,  language  arts,  programming, 
history,  and  games  for  the  family.  Featured 
are  the  new  generation  of  learning  games, 
which  are  ideally  suited  for  home  use.  The 
catalog  is  free  upon  request. 

Personal  Tutor  Associates 
Clinton,  MD 

WordStar  Tutor.  An  audio  instructional 
course  for  WordStar.  Contains  three  ninety- 
minute  cassettes.  $49.95. 
dBase  II  Tutor.  An  audio  instructional  course 
for  dBase  II.  These  three  ninety-minute  cas¬ 
settes  offer  a  guided  tour  designed  to  help 
you  set  up  your  own  business  labels  program 
and  database.  $59.95. 

Psychotechnics,  Inc. 

Glenview,  IL 

Telemath.  Trial  size. Two  arcade-style  math 
reinforcement  programs  from  the  validated 
set  of  eighty  Telemath  activities.  Featuring 
Plumb  Crazy:  1  and  Dribble  Multiplication. 
Combines  validated  software  with  arcade- 
game  action.  $10  (limited  time  offer). 
Telemath  Disk  1.  Four  arcade-style  programs 
for  math  reinforcement,  for  children  in 
grades  two  and  three.  Features:  Frog  Fun, 
Addition  Baseball,  Pirates  Gold,  and  Moo! 
$39.95. 

Telemath  Disk  2.  Four  arcade-style  programs 


>uter  December  1963 


W  m:  'MM  -iML 


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Education 

for  math  reinforcement,  for  children  in 
grades  two  to  six.  Features:  Plumb  Crazy :1, 
Geoterm,  Totem  Pole  Toppers,  and  Witch's 
Brew.  $39.95. 

Telemath  Disk  3 .  Four  arcade-style  programs 
for  math  reinforcement,  for  children  in 
grades  three  to  six.  Features:  Pic-n-Plot,  Line 
Up,  Move  and  Measure,  Coin  Connection. 
$39.95. 

Telemath  Disk  4.  Four  arcade-style  programs 
for  math  reinforcement,  for  children  in 
grades  four  to  six.  Features:  Dyn-O-Mite:  1, 
Multiplication  Baseball:  2,  Jump  Daredevil 
Multiplication,  Dewey  Packum.  $39.95. 
Telemath  Disk  5.  Four  arcade-style  programs 
for  math  reinforcement,  for  children  in 
grades  three  to  six.  Features:  Jump  Daredevil 
Subtraction,  Kingpin  Decimals,  Dribble  Di¬ 
vision,  Multiplication  Baseball :1.  $39.95. 
Telemath  Disk  6.  Four  arcade-style  programs 
for  math  reinforcement,  for  children  in 
grades  five  to  seven.  Features:  IRS  Average, 
Target  Practice:  1,  Area  Bridjit:2,  Dribble 
Subtraction.  $39.95. 

Telemath  Disk  7.  Four  arcade-style  programs 
for  math  reinforcement,  for  children  in 
grades  four  to  eight.  Features:  Dribble  Multi¬ 
plication,  Plumb  Crazy:2,  Concentration, 
Area  Bridjit:2.  $39.95, 


Telemath  Disk  8.  Four  arcade-style  programs 
for  math  reinforcement,  for  children  in 
grades  four  to  eight.  Features:  Dyn-O- 
Mite^,  Jump  Daredevil  Division,  Target 
Practiced,  Fraction  Football.  $39.95. 
Telemath  Disk  9.  Four  arcade-style  programs 
for  math  reinforcement,  for  children  in 
grades  four  to  eight.  Features:  Dyn-O- 
Mite^,  Jigsaw  Fractions,  Jump  Daredevil 
Fractions,  High  Stakes.  $39.95. 

Telemath  Disk  10.  Four  arcade-style  pro¬ 
grams  for  math  reinforcement,  for  children 
in  grade  eight.  Features:  Tic-Tac  Subtract, 
Search  and  Score,  Divide  and  Conquer, 
Bridge  It.  $39.95. 

QED  Information  Sciences,  Inc. 

Wellesley,  MA 

The  Instructor.  Self-teaching  software  for  the 
pc.  Transforms  the  pc  into  an  interactive  self¬ 
teaching  tool  for  new  users.  It  is  designed  for 
office,  home,  classroom  users.  $44.95. 


S-C  Software  Corp. 

Dallas,  TX 

S-C  Elementary  Math  Disk.  Helps  children 
with  their  addition,  subtraction,  multiplica¬ 
tion,  and  division.  Includes  a  long  division 
demonstrator,  and  both  text  and  lo-res 
graphic  flash  cards.  $15. 


Scarborough  Systems,  Inc.  (Lightning 
Software's  MasterType) 

Tarrytown,  NY 

MasterType.  Typing  instruction  in  an  excit¬ 
ing  video  game.  Defend  your  command  ship 
by  typing  the  enemy  words  correctly  or  have 
the  words  zap  you.  Eighteen  progressive  les¬ 
sons,  graduated  from  home  letter  recognition 
to  nine-letter  words,  numbers,  and  Basic  pro¬ 
gramming  words.  Ability  to  create  your  own 
lessons.  Created  for  all  ages.  $49.95. 

SimSoft,  Inc. 

Port  Huron,  MI 

Type  &  Learn.  Combines  learning  about 
computers  while  you  learn  to  type.  Beginners 
will  learn  the  home  keys  and  finger  usage.  A 
keyboard  image  on  the  screen  guides  begin¬ 
ners.  Typing  exercises  include  matching 
computer  words,  definitions,  and  para¬ 
graphs  of  computer  information.  Calculates 
right/wrong  score  and  words  per  minute 
speed.  $60. 

Sirius 

Sacramento,  CA 

Type  Attack.  Teaches  typing  skills  in  a  fast- 
action  arcade-style  format.  Giant  groups  of 
words  and  letters  falling  from  the  sky  can  be 
repelled  only  by  typing  the  same  words  or 
letters  on  the  computer  keyboard.  Includes 


The  Full-Featured 
WORD  PROCESSOR 


GOOD-WORDS 

with  Space  Saver  Disk  System- 


I'M 


4  eqsy  Ns  |*qrn  and  use 

*  full  screen  editing 

*  an-dumqncl  help  screen* 

*  function  key* 

v  complete  sedrcft/ replace 
■  easy  Ploch  mcuefc  within  g  page,  page  to 
page  tti#  to  rue  diskette  to  dltherr* 

-  IntfM 


*  Justification,  centering 
-  eaty  cut/ paste 

4  Insert/ delete  character*,  lines,  pages 

*  simple  file  and  disk  commands 

4  tp  ace- saverdisJ^  system:  25%  eidra  storage 
on  every  diskette 
■  ttpcfr-up  illsketk  Included 

*  multiple  printer  support  U  810 


CREDIT  CARD  ORDERS,  24  hours,  Toll-Free  1-800-824-7888  (operator  685)  Continental  U.S.,  Virgin  Island!  Puerto  Rico. 

Alaska  or  Hawaii  1-800-824-7919  (operator  685) 
mail  orders:  oak  tree  computing,  inc„  481  fairview  ave.,  arcadia,  ca.  91006  sorry  no  c.od.'s 

IBM  and  XT  are  Trademarks  of  IBM  Corporation.  Good-Words  and  Space- Saver-Disk-Systems  are  Trademarks  of  Oak  Tree  Computing,  Inc.  California  residents  add  6V2%  sales  tax. 


Education 


thirty-nine  preprogrammed  lessons,  a  lesson 
creator  with  which  users  can  design  their 
own  lessons,  and  a  real-time  words-per-min- 
ute  bar  with  player-selected  speeds  from  1  to 
99.  $39.95. 

Sliwa  Enterprises,  Inc. 

Yorktown,  VA 

SE/  History  of  Space  Flight.  Hundreds  of 
questions  lead  users  through  the  space  age. 
People,  places,  events,  politics,  physics  — the 
milestones  and  turning  points  of  space  explo¬ 
ration  are  covered,  A  hint,  reference,  or  in- 
depth  information  is  given  for  each  question, 
designed  to  build  recall  and  understanding 
for  conversation  or  further  study.  $25. 

5E/  Private  Pilot  Written  Exam.  Hundreds  of 
questions  from  the  FAA  Private  Pilot-Air¬ 
plane  Written  Test,  chosen  by  experts  to 
cover  all  required  FAA  private  pilot  subject 
areas  thoroughly.  A  hint  is  given  for  each 
question,  and  all  charts  and  diagrams  are  in¬ 
cluded,  S30. 

5EI  SAT  Skills >  Aids  to  students  preparing 
for  college  board  exams  such  as  P5AT,  SAT, 
GRE,  Sentence  completion,  word  analogy, 
and  vocabulary  are  covered  on  three  disks; 
two  math  disks  cover  fractions  to  trigonome¬ 
try,  including  computer  graphics.  Available 
separately  for  $30  or  as  a  set  for  $110. 

SEI  Foreign  Language  Set.  This  four-disk  set 
focuses  on  knowledge  of  vocabulary  of 
French,  Spanish,  and  German  at  the  begin¬ 
ning  to  intermediate  levels,  and  on  knowl¬ 
edge  of  foreign  words  in  English.  Each  disk 
contains  approximately  800  words  and 
phrases,  and  the  SEI  authoring  system  can  be 
used  to  expand  the  database.  Available  sepa¬ 
rately  for  £30  or  as  a  set  for  $110. 

SEI  Literature  Series.  This  twenty-six-disk  se¬ 
ries  provides  comprehensive  review  of  all  lit¬ 
erature  at  the  high  school  to  college  level. 
Titles  include  Shakespeare,  Poe,  women  au¬ 
thors,  and  more.  Each  disk  contains  approxi¬ 
mately  300  questions  plus  hints  and  in-depth 
analyses.  SEI  authoring  system  can  be  used 
to  expand  the  database.  Available  separately 
for  $25  or  as  a  set  for  $550, 

History  and  Government  Series .  The  ten 
disks  in  this  series  provide  review,  reinforce¬ 
ment,  and  insight  into  world  history  and 
world  government  for  students  at  the  high 
school  to  first-year  college  level,  U,S.  history 
and  government  are  emphasized.  Available 
separately  for  £25  or  as  a  set  for  $215. 

Softech  Microsystems 

San  Diego,  CA 

Softeach.  A  computer-aided  instruction 
package  for  the  UCSD  Pascal  programming 
language.  Softeach  progresses  step-by-step 


Save  space , 
improve  ergonomics 
and  system  life. 

The  SS-1  System  Stand  by  Curtis 
offers  you  more  freedom  of  arrange¬ 
ment.  Reduces  the  systems  unit 
footprint  by  54%.  Use  less  desktop 
space,  or  no  desktop  space  at  all  - 
put  it  on  the  floor!  It  feels  great.  Also, 
with  less  disk  drive  wear  in  the  verti¬ 
cal  position,  systems  unit  can  be 
expected  to  have  a  longer  life  and 
less  down  time  with  the  SS-I. 

Get  the  sturdy  SS-I  and  stand  your 
systems  unit  on  its  ear  -  it  feels  great 
and  lasts  longer. 

Re-arrange  your 
IBM  PC ...  comfortably 

Developed  exclusively  for  the  IBM  PC,  all  Curtis  products  have  a 
lifetime  warranty  and  are  a  perfect  PC  match  in  color,  style  and  finish 


PC  Pfedestal1^1  n,  Till  and  Swivef  Base 
{for  *BM  PC  Monochrome  and 
Cotor  Oi  splays) 

ACM  Adapte  r  for  PC  Pedesta  PM  . 

(for  Princeton  Graph ic$  Systems  and 
Quadchrome  Displays) 

SS-I  System  Stand  .  .  24. 9S 

{lor  IBM  PC  System  Unit) 

Available  at  ah 
ComputerLand  Stores 
Entre  Computer  Centers 
ComputerMarts 
ComputerCrafts 
Micro  Age 
or  your  local 
PC  deafer. 

Over  800  locations  nationally. 

For  the  dealer  nearest  you 
call (603)  924-7803. 


49.95 


EC-1  3  Extension  Gable  Set . 

(for  IBM  PC  Monochrome  Display) 

EC-1 1  3' to  9  Extension  Cable  .......  3995 

(for  IBM  PC  Keyboard) 

Manufacturing  Company.  Inc. 

QRTIS 

Curtis  Manufacturing  Company,  Inc 
Peterborough,  NH  03456 


A 104 


for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  19&3 


165 


Copyright  0  Curtis  Manufacturing  Co  ,  Inc 


Education 


through  a  dual-set  of  quizzes:  one  quiz  tests 
your  knowledge  of  UCSD  Pascal,  and  the 
other  quiz  requires  you  to  write  a  Pascal  pro¬ 
gram.  A  documentation  package  is  included. 
$125. 

Software  Arts 
Wellesley,  MA 

TKISolverPack  for  Introductory  Science. 
Designed  for  use  with  the  TKlSolver,  covers 
topics  in  chemistry  biology  physics,  thermo¬ 
dynamics,  and  population  studies  at  the  high 
school  and  college  level.  Contains  twelve 
models  with  the  equations,  values,  and  tables 
needed  to  solve  particular  problems  in  these 
fields.  $100. 

The  Soft  Warehouse 
Honolulu,  HI 

muMATH.  A  symbolic  math  system  used  as 
an  interactive  tool  in  scientific,  engineering, 
and  educational  applications.  Performs  sym¬ 
bolic  math  like  a  super  calculator:  from  exact 
rational  arithmetic  through  calculus,  trigo¬ 
nometry  and  matrix  algebra.  The  accom¬ 
panying  programming  language  muSIMP 
can  be  used,  along  with  the  resident  display- 
oriented  editor,  to  extend  muMath  or  create 
totally  different  applications,  A  detailed  ref¬ 
erence  manual  and  interactive,  on-line  les¬ 
sons  are  provided.  $330. 

Spinnaker  Software  Corp 
Cambridge,  MA 

Delta  Drawing  Learning  Program.  Children 
create  colorful  drawings  on  the  computer 
screen  by  using  single  key  commands  to  con¬ 
trol  the  cursor.  The  program  can  be  used  in 
graphics  or  text  mode.  $49.95. 

Snooper  Troops  I  and  II.  Learning  adven¬ 
tures.  Players  are  private  detectives  trying  to 
determine  who  perpetrated  the  crime  and 
what  the  motive  was.  Players  drive  around 
town,  question  suspects,  search  house  for 
clues,  and  use  a  Snooper  computer.  $44.95. 
Hey  Diddle  Diddle.  Three-part  learning 
game  that  introduces  children  to  Mother 
Goose  lore.  $29.95. 

Rhymes  +  Riddles.  A  letter-guessing  game 
presented  in  three  formats:  nursery  rhymes, 
riddles,  famous  sayings.  $29.95. 

Alphabet  Zoo.  A  combination  of  two  maze 
games  that  teach  the  relationship  between 
sounds  and  letters  and  sharpen  skills.  $29.95. 
Face  Maker.  A  three-part  learning  game  in 
which  a  child  completes  a  blank  face,  ani¬ 
mates  the  face,  and  plays  a  Simon  Says  game 
with  the  computer.  $34.95. 

In  Search  of  the  Most  Amazing  Thing.  The 
player  in  the  role  of  the  B-liner  pilot  goes  in 
search  of  the  most  amazing  thing  in  the  land 
of  Darksome  Mire.  Each  time  the  player 


166 


solves  this  educational  adventure,  the  clues 
and  the  location  of  the  Most  Amazing  Thing 
change.  $39.95. 

Kindercomp.  A  collection  of  six  learning 
games  that  prepare  a  child  to  read,  spell,  and 
count.  $29.95. 

Story  Machine.  A  learning  game  in  which  a 
child  writes  a  story  with  a  supplied  vocabu¬ 
lary  and  the  stories  are  animated.  Stories  can 
be  saved  to  disk.  $34.95. 

Stone  and  Associates 
La  Jolla,  CA 

My  Letters ,  Numbers ,  and  Words.  An  educa¬ 
tional  software  package  for  children  from 
one  to  five.  Children  learn  the  alphabet, 
numbers,  and  the  concept  of  words  through 
animated  flash-card  routines.  $39.95. 

Sunburst  Communications,  Inc. 

Pleasant ville,  NY 

The  Pond:  Strategies  in  Problem  Solving.  A 
small  green  frog  lost  in  a  pond  of  lily  pads 
helps  students/users  recognize  and  articulate 
patterns,  generalize  from  raw  data,  and  think 
logically  Six  levels  of  difficulty  are  provided. 
Color/ graphics  card,  color  monitor.  Package 
includes  one  disk,  one  backup  disk,  one 
teacher's  guide.  $49. 

The  Factory:  Strategies  in  Problem  Solving. 
Color  graphics  and  animation  are  used  in  this 
three-level  program.  Challenges  students  to 
create  a  geometric  product  on  a  simulated  as¬ 
sembly  line  that  they  design.  Focuses  on  sev¬ 
eral  problem-solving  strategies,  including 
working  backward,  analyzing  a  process,  de¬ 
termining  sequence,  and  applying  creativity 
Package  includes  one  disk,  one  backup  disk, 
and  a  teacher's  guide.  $49. 

M-SS-NG  L-NKS:  A  Game  of  Letters  and 
Language.  Language  puzzles  improve  stu¬ 
dents'  reading,  writing,  grammar,  and  com¬ 
prehension  skills.  Helps  develop  an 
appreciation  of  syntax,  vocabulary,  and  the 
mechanics  of  writing.  Passages  from  nine 
classics  of  children's  literature  are  offered. 
There  are  nine  difficulty  levels  permitting  the 
creation  of  over  500  different  puzzles.  Pack¬ 
age  includes  one  disk,  one  backup  disk,  and  a 
teacher's  guide.  $49. 

Meet  the  Computer:  Beginning  Basic  IBM - 
PC.  A  how-to  program  designed  for  students 
and  teachers  who  want  to  develop  computer 
literacy  from  the  beginning  or  brush  up  their 
computer  skills.  Package  includes  quick-ref¬ 
erence  folders  for  programmers,  reproduc¬ 
ible  graphs  and  charts  for  plotting  and 
keeping  records,  and  disks  with  answers  and 
additional  activities.  $29. 

Systech,  Inc. 

Bartlesville,  OK 

Math  Tutor.  A  complete  math  education  pro¬ 
gram  for  children  from  6  to  16  years  of  age. 
Provides  randomized  addition,  subtraction, 
multiplication,  division,  and  fraction  skills  at 


various  skill  levels.  Many  math  games  with 
colorful  animation  and  music.  $39. 

Systems  Plus,  Inc. 

Palo  Alto,  CA 

Flypchart.  A  simple-to-use,  easy-to-set-up 
education,  sales,  training,  and  documenta¬ 
tion  tool.  Information  unique  to  the  user's 
own  requirements  is  presented  through  flip¬ 
chart-style  screens  in  three  inodes:  interac¬ 
tive,  self-paced,  and  automatic.  Comes  with 
on-line  instructions  and  help  files.  $175. 

Taurus  Software  Corp 
Fremont,  CA 

CP  + .  Training  course  for  new  computer  us¬ 
ers  who  are  not  familiar  with  the  basic  opera¬ 
tions  of  a  microcomputer  system.  CP+  is 
also  a  combination  of  control  and  file  man¬ 
agement  utility  programs.  It  provides  simple 
communication  between  users,  the  computer 
operating  system,  and  application  programs 
through  English-language  directions.  $150. 

Term  Computer  Services 
New  Providence,  NJ 
The  Mr.  Math  Arithmetic  Tutor.  Allows  stu¬ 
dents  to  practice  basic  arithmetic  skills  at 
their  own  level.  Randomly  generated  prob¬ 
lems  at  different  levels  of  difficulty  All  prob¬ 
lems  worked  out  directly  on  screen. 
Step-by-step  solutions  for  problems  missed. 
Report  card  summarizes  problems  attempted 
and  number  solved  at  end  of  session.  $29.95. 

Wadsworth  Electronic 
Publishing  Co. 

New  York,  NY 

Algebra  Arcade.  Teaches  algebra  to  math 
and  video  game  enthusiasts  as  well  as  to  stu¬ 
dents  of  both  algebra  and  analytical  geome¬ 
try  It  is  a  graph  game  in  which  a  player 
scores  points  by  inputting  an  equation  whose 
line  or  curve  intersects  and  destroys  the 
greatest  number  of  randomly  spaced  critters 
known  as  Algebroids.  But  if  a  player's  line  or 
curve  hits  an  on-screen  obstacle  (the  Graph 
Gobbler),  a  committee  randomly  assigns  a 
penalty  of  lost  turns  or  clemency.  $49.95. 

Waterloo  Microsystems  Inc. 
Waterloo,  Ontario,  Canada 
Waterloo  Logo.  Full  implementation  of  the 
Logo  language  including  more  than  140 
primitives,  procedures,  twelve-digit  decimal 
floating  point  arithmetic,  iteration  and  re¬ 
cursion,  input  and  output,  printing  of  proce¬ 
dures  and  turtle's  drawings,  saving 
procedures  and  drawings  in  PC-DOS  files, 
music  painting,  list  processing,  work  space 
management,  easy-to-use  full  screen  editor, 
function-key  support,  additional  infix  opera¬ 
tors,  typeahead  turtle  graphics,  friendly  er¬ 
ror  messages,  tutorial  and  reference  manual, 
pocket-size  reference  card.  $180. 


SOftCilk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


Everything 

You  Ever  Wanted  From 
Personal  Computing 

Faster  Easier 


SOLVING  PROBLEMS  VS  READING  MANUALS 

The  real  benefits  of  personal  computing  come  from  putting  the  hardware  and  software  to  work  solving  your  business 
problems  and  not  spending  hours  reading  through  boring  and  tedious  operating  manuals. 

PERSONAL  COMPUTER  BECOMES  PERSONAL  TUTOR 

With  Cdex  Training  programs  you  simply  insert  a  Cdex  diskette  in  your  computer  disk  drive,  turn  on  your 
TRAINING  comPuter’  an^  'n  an  instant  your  personal  computer  becomes  your  personal  tutor. 

FOR  PERSONAL 
COMPUTERS: 


COMPREHENSIVE  TRAINING  PROGRAMS 


Each  Cdex  program  contains  at  least  three  disks  and  many  contain  four  disks.  That's  because 
How  to  use  you  Cdex  Training  programs  are  graphical,  interactive,  and  comprehensive.  They  not  only  tell  you 
IBM'1"  personal  computer  how  hardware  and  software  work,  but  they  allow  you  to  operate  it  through  simulations 
with  PC  DOS  —  PC  or  >CT  and  hands-on  exercises  with  the  actual  hardware  and  software. 

How  to  use  your  ISM4 

persona!  computer  with  CPM36  REFERENCE  GUIDE  INCLUDED 
or  Concurrent  C PM  86  —  In  addition,  each  Cdex  program  comes  with  a  Reference  Guide  that  contains 

PC  or  XT  keyboard  and/or  command  references  for  the  pertinent  hardware  or  software 


r 


*  1BM%  PC  communications  using  the 
IBM®  PC  Asynchronous 

C om m uni  canons  P ro g r a  r n 

*  IBM'*  PC  DOS  2.0 

*  How  to  use  your  Apple*  He  personal 
computer 

TRAINING  FOR  PERSONAL 
COMPUTER  SOFTWARE; 


Au. 


*  Advanced  Tuning  for  the  L 
I  -2-3  Program 

*  The  Lotus fv  1-2-3  Program 

*  The  MULTIPLANE  Program 

-  The  Vrsf Wot<fKf'  Program 

*  The  VisiTrend™  and  VlsiPfot1M  Program 

*  The  JK  t  Solver  Program 

*  The  MulliMate,w  Program 

*  The  ViSiCatd*'  Program 

*  The  WordStar Program 

*  The  SuperCate/^  and  Super  Gale  ^l,v  Program 

*  The  EasyWriter-'^  Jl  Program 

-  The  dBase  II*  Program 

*  The  DB  Master rM  Program  —  Version  4 

TRAINING  FOR  PERSONAL  COMPUTER  ACCOUNTING 
SOFTWARE: _ 

*  The  BPJ*  General  Accounting  Program 
«  The  Stare  of  Che  AnA'  General  Ledger  System 

*  The  Peachtree  General  Ledger  System 

TRAINING  FOR  BUSINESS  PRODUCTIVITY  USING  PERSONAL 
COMPUTER  SOFTWARE;  _ _ _ 

"Managing  Your  Business  Using  Elea/ onto  Spreadsheets 

*  "Making  Business  Decisions  Using  Electronic  Spreadsheets" 

These  programs  are  for  users  of  the  Lotus  v  1-2-3  Program, 

MULT l PLAN™  Program  VisICsId*  WsiCalc  *V*J  ot  VbJCak*  Advanced 
Version  Programs,  or  SyperCafcrM  or  SuperCaJm™  Programs 


so  that  you  can  use  it  later  to  refresh  your  memory, 

COMPETITIVELY  PRICED 

Surprisingly,  given  the  above  comprehen¬ 
siveness  of  design  and  content  Cdex 
Training  Programs  are  priced  compet¬ 
itively  with  other  computer-based 
training  products  that  claim  to  pro- 
vide  training  but  only  provide  an  in¬ 
troduction  to  training, 

O  USABLE  TODAY  AND 
TOMORROW 

With  Cdex  Training  Programsyou 
can  use  them  today  to  train  yourself 
on  those  features  you  need  today  and  use 
them  tomorrow  to  train  yourself  on  the  ad¬ 
vanced  features  you  need  to  implement  sophis¬ 
ticated  applications. 

You  get  everything  you  ever  wanted  from  per¬ 
sonal  computing.  Faster  and  easier. 

Cdex  Training  Programs  are  availabfe  for  the 
IBM®  PC  or  XT  and  IBM  compatible  personal 
computers,  and  the  Apple  II®  Pius,  Apple  lie  and 
Apple  Ml  personal  computers.  See  how  effective 
a  Cdex  Training  Program  can  be.  Ask  your  com¬ 
puter  dealer  for  a  demonstration  or  calf 

(800)  982-1213 

in  California  call  (4 15)  964-7600, 


TM 


Cdex  Corporation 

5050  El  Camino  Real,  Los  Altos,  CA  94022 


Games 


Adventure  International 

Longwood,  FL 

Are*.  Enter  and  neutralize  ninety  percent  of 
the  aliens'  territory  while  avoiding  three 
types  of  alien  ships,  $34,95. 

Aeon  Concepts 

Pittsburgh,  PA 

Microcosm  A  strategy  game  that  simulates 
birth,  death,  and  migration  among  popula¬ 
tions  of  microbes.  In  solitaire  modes,  explore 
the  evolution  of  patterns  at  up  to  2,5  genera¬ 
tions  per  second.  lu  competition  modes,  sab¬ 
otage  your  opponent's  colony  while  yours 
flourishes.  Preview  future  generations,  store 
patterns,  change  symbols  or  colors  used, 
even  change  the  rules  for  countless  varia¬ 
tions,  $29,95, 

AI  Design 

Santa  Clara,  CA 

Roque.  A  pc  adaptation  of  the  most  popular 
game  running  on  the  Unix  system.  Combine 
magic,  weaponry,  and  determination  to  gain 
the  Amulet  of  Vendor  and  escape  the  Dun¬ 
geons  of  Doom,  The  action  is  Fast  and  contin¬ 
uous,  unlike  simple  text  adventures.  Roque  is 
different  every  time  you  play,  and  its  popu¬ 
larity  lies  in  the  fact  that  you  succeed  by 
building  you r  character's  skill,  not  memoriz¬ 
ing  events.  The  game  requires  128K  of  mem¬ 
ory,  one  disk  drive,  and  runs  on  DOS  1+I  or 
DOS  2.0  with  either  monochrome  or  color 
monitor.  $44,95, 

Anthro-Digital,  Inc, 

Pittsfield,  MA 

Gambling  Games.  Gives  you  three  hi-res 
color  card  games:  five-card  draw  poker. 


blackjack,  and  keno.  Also  monochrome. 
$35, 

Artificial  Intelligence  Research 
Group 

Los  Angeles,  CA 

Eliza.  Created  at  MIT  in  1966,  Eliza  is  a  non- 
directive  psychotherapist  who  analyzes  each 
statement  as  you  type  it  in  and  then  responds 
with  her  own  comment  or  question— and  her 
remarks  are  often  amazingly  appropriate! 
$45, 

Avalon  Hill  Game  Co* 

Baltimore,  MD 

Computer  Facts  in  Five.  Computer  game  of 
knowledge  with  educational  merit  for  the  en¬ 
tire  family.  One,  two,  or  more  players  partic¬ 
ipate,  selecting  from  more  than  1,000 
popular  and  academic  subjects.  $26, 

VC \  Short  for  Viet  Cong,  a  game  on  the  con¬ 
troversial  Vietnam  War.  You  have  the  task  of 
bringing  the  civilian  population  under  your 
protection.  $25, 

T./LC.  An  acronym  for  Tactical  Armor 
Command.  You  control  individual  tanks,  an¬ 
titank  guns,  and  infantry  squads.  For  one  or 
two  players,  featuring  hi-res  graphics,  en¬ 
hanced  sound,  and  stimulating  challenge. 
Five  different  scenarios  are  available,  from 
engagement  to  stalemate,  $40 

Avant-Garde 
Eugene,  OR 

Air  Controller.  You  are  an  air  traffic  control¬ 
ler  at  a  major  metropolitan  airport.  Your 
monitor  serves  as  a  radar  screen  and  your  job 
is  to  use  the  radar  readout  to  direct  the  flight 
paths  and  landings  of  helicopters,  passenger 


jets,  military  jets,  and  private  prop  planes. 
$29.95, 

Federation.  You,  as  commander  of  a  Federa¬ 
tion  Starship,  must  protect  your  planet  from 
Drorn  Drones.  Using  your  laser  cannon,  you 
destroy  their  flying  ships  while  your  neutro- 
static  bombs  eliminate  surface  emplace¬ 
ments.  To  get  to  their  mother  ship  you  must 
first  destroy  their  remote  fighters,  but  beware 
of  their  tracking  bombs.  $29.95. 

Lazermaze.  In  the  twenty-fourth  century 
conflicts  are  settled  in  the  hall  of  mirrors,  and 
guess  where  the  laser  will  exit?  A  correct 
guess  results  in  the  conflict  being  settled  in 
your  favor.  Begin  with  thirty  mirrors  and 
work  your  way  to  seventy  $29.95. 

Basic  Business  Software,  Inc. 

Las  Vegas,  NV 

Super  Trek.  A  real-time  version  of  the  popu¬ 
lar  Star  Trek  game.  Supports  an  RGB  moni¬ 
tor  and  displays  four  colors.  530. 

Robert  J.  Brady  Company 
Bowie,  MD 

Laser  cycle.  A  futuristic  space-travel  game  in 
which  players  accelerate  their  powerful  laser- 
cycles  through  perilous  arenas.  The  user 
wards  off  deadly,  light-seeking  attack  spheres 
to  complete  the  circuit  and  become  a  cham¬ 
pion  of  champion  riders.  A  game  of  maneu¬ 
vers  and  countermaneuvers,  played  in 
sound.  Allows  players  to  progress  from 
arena  to  arena,  accumulate  points,  and  ad¬ 
vance  in  rank  among  the  skill  levels  of  the 
circuit  riders,  $29.95. 

Broderbund  Software,  Inc, 

San  Rafael,  CA 

Apple  Panic.  The  apples  will  get  you  if  you 


tV: 


168 


softolk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1933 


Some  people 
have  dreams 
while  others 
have  visions. 


MULTIMATE: 

THE  WORD 
PROCESSOR 
YOU’VE  BEEN 
DREAMING  OF 

At  SoftWord,  we  had  a  vision  of  what 
word  processing  on  a  personal 
computer  ought  to  be. 


Multi  M ate  you  get  over  80  powerful 
word  processing  functions.  Merge,  a 
library  for  boilerplate,  automotic 
underlining  on  the  screen,  on-Jine 
help,  everything  dedicoted  word 
processing  could  give  you  and  more. 

In  our  wildest  dreams,  we  never 
imagined  we  would  write  the 
documentation  reviewers  say  is  the 
best  in  the  industry.  Or  offer  free 
enhancements  for  180  days, 
including  a  spell  checker/carrector 
with  an  89,000  word  dictionary. 


We  were  challenged  by  a  blue  chip 
insurance  company  to  create  word 
processing  for  the  IBMf  PC  that  would 
mimic  the  features  and 
functions  of  a  dedicated  system. 
Other  software  manufacturers 
thought  we  were  dreoming 

We  envisioned  a  word  processing 
system  that  would  make  full  use  of 
the  PC  and  its  keyboaro  With 


Or  that  we  would  be  called  the 
"industry  heavyweight/1 

By  adding  quality  technical  support, 
toll-free  to  end  users,  we  took  the 
nightmare  out  of  word  processing.  In 
case  you  think  it's  still  a  dream,  try 
Multi  Mate  at  a  computer  store  near 
you. 


|  SOFTWOOD  SYSTEMS,  INC  (203)  522-21 16,  52  Oakland  Ave..  North,  East  Hartford,  CT  06108 


ttBM  is  o  registered  nactemark  of  International  Business  Machines  Corp  tMultrMate  is  a  trademark  of  Soft  Word  Systems.  Inc. 


Games 


don't  watch  out!  Forced  to  flee  from  pursuing 
apples  in  a  multilevel  mansion,  you  set  traps 
for  your  pursuers  along  the  way.  A  fast  ar¬ 
cade-style  game  with  graphics  and  anima¬ 
tion.  $29.95. 

Serpentine.  Giant  serpents  set  forth  to  slay 
their  slithery  cousins.  To  add  to  the  fun,  the 
snakes  lay  eggs  and  fight  ferociously  to  pro¬ 
tect  their  young!  A  fast  arcade-type  game 
with  many  levels  of  play.  $34.95. 

Lode  Runner.  Design  your  own  game 


screens!  As  a  galactic  commando  out  to  re¬ 
cover  gold  from  the  Bungeling  Empire,  you'll 
have  to  maneuver  through  150  levels  of  game 
play  by  running,  jumping,  and  drilling  new 
passageways  with  your  laser  pistol.  Using  the 
game  generator  you  can  design  your  own 
playing  fields.  No  programming  knowledge 
is  needed.  $34.95. 

ColorCorp 

Bloomfield  Hills,  MI 

ColorBiz  Gambler.  Completely  authentic  Las 

Vegas  casino  games  package,  including 

blackjack,  baccarat,  and  keno.  Select  casino, 


SATORI  SOFTWARE  presents 

SPECIALIZED  DATA  BASE  PROGRAMS 


=  bulk  mailer 


A  prolesional  mailing  list  program  that  includes  a  sophisticated  duplication 
search  and  an  incredible  32,000  name  capacity  with  hard  disk  (2400  names 
with  a  dual  drive,  1200  names  with  a  single  drive).  Very  straight  forward  and 
easy-to-use. 


Duplication  Elimination 
Broad  Coding  Capability 
Can  upgrade  to  bard  disk 
Zip  and  Alpha  sorts 


1-UP.2-UP.3-UP  8c  4-UP  labels 
Detault  Options 
Remarks  line 

Plus  other  marketing  features 


Apple  II  diskette  version  -2400  names  (dual  drive)  or  1200  names  (single  drive) 
$125.  Hard  Disk  version  -32,000  names  $350. 


IBM  PC  diskette  version  -Up  to  5400  names,  depending  upon  configuration. 
$125.  Hard  Disk  version  -32,000  names  $350. 


//  INVENTORY  MANAGER 


Perfect  for  retailers,  distributers  or  any  business  involved  with  sales.  Can  track 
2700  items  (1200  items  on  a  single  drive  system),  and  provides  numerous  infor¬ 
mation  reports. 


■  Stores  up  to  2700  items 

■  Up  to  99  vendors 

■  Prints  purchase  orders 

■  Easy  stock  up-dates 


■  Lists  stock  sold  8c  gross  profits 
-Prints  suggested  orders 
■Sorts  by  vendor,  department,  profit 
■Many  more  features 


"Inventory  Manager  is  among  the  most  complete  programs  of  its  type  on  the 
market  today"  SOFTALK,  Dec.  1982 

Apple  II  Sc  He  version  -  2700  items  (dual  drive)  or  1200  items  (single  drive) 
$150.  IBM  PC  version  -  up  to  10,000  items,  depending  upon  configuration  $150. 


4^  LEGAL  BILLING 


Very  friendly  and  complete  legal  billing  system.  Allows  a  great  deal  of  user 
control 

■  Prints  customized  statements  ■  Includes  Trust  Accounts 

-  Prints  aging  reports  -  User  designated  codes 

■  Up  to  200  clients  -  Automatic  interest  added 

■  Up  to  4000  transactions 
Apple  II  or  IBM  PC  version  -  $350. 


Available  at  your  dealer  or  order  directly  from: 


SATOR 1 

SOFTWARE 


5507  Woodlawn  N. 
Seattle,  WA  98103 
(206)  633-1469 


table  minimums,  dealer,  colors,  number  of 
players,  and  number  of  decks.  Keeps  track  of 
winnings,  losses,  commissions,  and  more. 
$29.95. 

Cortland  Data  Systems 
Chicago,  IL 

The  Insecticide.  Blast  creepy-crawly  bugs  as 
they  slither  down  your  screen.  They  want 
you  and  it's  your  mission  to  keep  them  from 
getting  past  you  into  your  house.  Watch  out; 
if  you  hit  one  of  their  skeletons,  it  will  be  fa¬ 
tal.  Fast  action  as  you  dodge  fleas,  ticks,  and 
armies  of  bugdom.  $34.95. 

Star  Defense .  The  Russians  are  launching  a 
first  strike  against  the  earth  from  their  bases 
in  space.  You  must  dodge  meteors  and  at¬ 
tacking  drones  to  bomb  the  missile  sites.  It  is 
a  fast-moving  experience  that  is  not  for  the 
faint  of  heart.  If  their  missiles  don't  get  you— 
their  star  fleet  might!  $29.95. 

Datamost,  Inc. 

Chatsworth,  CA 

Market  Mogul.  With  greed  and  prestige  as 
motivation,  your  goal  is  to  become  chairman 
of  the  board  of  MegaCorp,  To  accomplish 
this,  you  play  the  stock  market  and  attempt 
to  become  president  of  all  MegaCorp  subsi¬ 
diaries.  Stocks,  current  market  price,  last 
change  in  price,  market  value,  outstanding 
loans,  prime  rates,  percentage  of  equity  are 
all  here.  $39.95. 

Dynacomp,  Inc. 

Rochester,  NY 

Space  Lanes.  A  simple  but  exciting  simula¬ 
tion  of  the  economics  of  the  space  transporta¬ 
tion  industry.  The  object  is  to  establish  and 
expand  space  transportation  companies  in  a 
competitive  environment.  The  success  of  a 
particular  company  is  measured  by  the  ex¬ 
tent  of  its  space  lanes.  This  success  is  reflected 
in  the  value  of  its  stock.  $14.95. 

Valdez.  A  simulation  of  supertanker  naviga¬ 
tion  in  the  Prince  William  Sound  area  of 
Alaska.  It  contains  a  detailed  analysis  of 
ship-response  characteristics  as  well  as  a 
model  of  tidal  patterns  in  the  Sound.  Naviga¬ 
tion  is  aided  by  a  variable  range  radar  dis¬ 
play  which  shows  the  land  masses  and  other 
traffic  (ships  and  icebergs).  $23.95. 
Backgammon  2.0.  Tests  your  backgammon 
skills  and  will  also  improve  your  game.  A  hu¬ 
man  can  compete  against  the  computer  or 
against  another  human.  $23.95. 

Starbase  3.2.  Related  to  the  classic  space  sim¬ 
ulation  many  have  played  on  large  comput¬ 
ers.  This  version  is  a  significantly  enhanced 
program,  is  more  complex,  and  is  more  chal¬ 
lenging.  $17.95. 

Space  Evacuation.  How  many  people  can 
you  evacuate  from  Earth  before  the  sun  ex¬ 
plodes?  Your  computer  becomes  the  control 
console  of  a  giant  spaceship  in  this  exciting 
simulation  as  you  determine  which  worlds 


170 


softalk 


‘MXMES®  §MM§E§ 


Games 


can  be  colonized,  make  those  worlds  habit¬ 
able,  and  transport  people  through  space. 
$19.95. 

Edu-Ware  Services,  Inc. 

Agoura  Hills,  CA 

Prisoner  2.  Enter  'The  Island"  and  play  a 
game  of  delusion  and  paradox.  A  science- 
fiction  adventure.  $39.95. 

Electronic  Courseware  Systems,  Inc. 
Champaign,  IL 

Ear  Challenger.  An  audiovisual  game  de¬ 
signed  to  increase  tonal  memory  through  a 
series  of  pitches  that  are  played  by  the  com¬ 
puter.  The  game  includes  several  levels  of  dif¬ 
ficulty  based  upon  the  number  of  pitches 
presented.  Each  pitch  is  reinforced  visually 
with  color  presentation  on  the  display 
screen.  $39.95. 

Ensign  Software 
Boise,  ID 

Treasure  Hunt.  Roam  the  lifelike  hallways, 
rooms,  and  chambers  of  a  mansion  in  search 
of  ten  treasures.  The  game  is  nonviolent  as 
you  race  against  the  clock  to  see  how  quickly 
you  can  find  and  collect  the  ten  treasures. 
Color/graphics  adapter.  $24.95. 

Chomps.  You  maneuver  your  Chomps 
around  a  maze,  scoring  points,  avoiding 
monsters,  and  collecting  prizes.  Features  four 
different  mazes,  joystick  control,  high  score 
records.  $29.95. 

Fun  10.  A  collection  of  ten  great  games  the 
whole  family  can  play.  Qubic,  reversal,  king¬ 
dom,  cribbage,  black  box,  space  trek,  black¬ 
jack,  master  mind,  Americans  quiz,  and 
presidents  quiz.  Color  or  monochrome. 
Eighty-column  monitor.  $29.95. 

Friendly  Soft,  Inc. 

Arlington,  TX 

Game  package.  Ten  arcade  games  on  one 
disk.  Color  or  monochrome,  eighty-column 
monitor.  Joystick  or  keyboard.  Written  in  as¬ 
sembler  for  real-time  speed.  Games  include 
ASCII  Man,  Gorilla  Gorilla,  Bug  Blaster, 
Hopper,  Brick  Breaker,  Eagle  Lander, 
Shooter,  Starfighter  TX-16,  pc  Derby,  and 
Robot  War.  $49.95. 

Funtastic,  Inc. 

Drexel  Hill,  PA 

Snack  Attack  11.  Guide  a  cute  snacking  crea¬ 
ture  through  several  different  mazes.  He 
snacks  on  colored  gumdrops  while  avoiding 
the  greedy  gumdrop  guards.  Keyboard  or 
joystick  control.  User-configurable  key¬ 
board.  Several  levels  of  play.  Sound  toggle 
and  full  color.  $38.95. 

Cosmic  Crusader.  A  space  arcade  skill  game. 


While  traveling  through  space,  the  player 
must  defend  himself  and  Earth  against  at¬ 
tacks  by  fleets  of  hostile  alien  spacecraft. 
Complex  sound  effects  immerse  the  player  in 
the  fray  of  the  battle  to  save  Earth.  $38.95. 
Big  Top.  Welcome  to  a  multiring  circus.  Jump 
to  the  next  platform,  climb  up  the  ladders, 
duck  the  cannonballs,  take  a  swing  on  the 
trapeze,  and  slide  down  the  poles.  You  must 
do  all  this  and  more  while  collecting  the  ring¬ 
master's  hats.  Keyboard  or  joystick  con¬ 
trolled.  $39.95. 

Master  Miner  Are  you  the  Master  Miner?  If 
you  think  so,  then  prove  it  by  mining  more 
riches  in  the  Asteroid  Belt  than  your  oppo¬ 
nent.  You  can  play  alone  or  against  another 
miner  simultaneously.  $39.95. 

GameMaster 
Evanston,  IL 

GameMaster.  The  fun-oriented  computer 
network — housed  in  a  35-room  electronic 
mansion  in  Evanston,  Illinois — open  to  com¬ 
puter  gamers  who  enjoy  challenging  interac¬ 
tive  multiplayer  games.  Memberships:  $15 
introductory  includes  four  hours  on-line;  full 
$50  includes  50-page  system  documentation 
plus  ten  hours  on-line.  At  all  times,  on-line 
hourly  rate,  $3. 

Generic  Software 
Marquette,  MI 

Game-Pac-1.  The  Number-Rotation  requires 
numbers  hidden  on  the  terminal  screen  to  be 
found  in  sequence.  Uses  big  block  numbers 
and  nine  skill  levels.  Guns  of  the  Alps  is  a 
shooting  game  for  one  to  two  players.  The 
player  must  choose  an  artillery  shell  and 
shooting  angle  that  will  destroy  the  enemy 
gun.  $29.95 

1-Bert.  An  arcade-style  game  that  requires  a 
strange  looking  little  fellow  (called  I-Bert)  to 
constantly  change  the  colors  of  the  sacred 
tiles.  However,  evil  critters  make  I-Bert 's  task 
more  difficult. 

Infocom,  Inc. 

Cambridge,  MA 

Zork  1:  The  Great  Underground  Empire. 
Confront  perils  and  predicaments  ranging 
from  the  mystical  to  the  macabre,  as  you 
strive  to  discover  the  twenty  treasures  of 
Zork  and  escape  with  them  and  your  life. 
$39.95. 

Zork  11:  The  Wizard  ofFrobozz.  New  depths 
of  the  subterranean  realm.  There  you'll  meet 
the  Wizard,  who  will  attempt  to  confound 
your  quest  with  his  capricious  powers. 
$39.95. 

Zork  111:  The  Dungeon  Master  The  final  test 
of  your  courage  and  wisdom.  Your  odyssey 
culminates  in  an  encounter  with  the  Dungeon 
Master  himself,  and  your  destiny  hangs  in 
the  balance.  $39.95. 

Star  cross.  Launches  you  headlong  into  the 
year  2186  and  the  depths  of  space.  You  are 


destined  to  rendezvous  with  a  gargantuan 
starship  from  the  outer  fringes  of  our  galaxy 
that  conveys  a  challenge  issued  eons  ago, 
from  light-years  away — and  only  you  can 
meet  it.  $39.95. 

Planet  fall.  A  humorous  science  fiction  ad¬ 
venture  set  in  the  far  future.  You  are  the  low¬ 
liest  ensign  aboard  the  Stellar  Patrol  Ship 
Feinstein.  When  your  ship  explodes,  you  are 
jettisoned  onto  a  mysterious  and  deserted 
world  plagued  by  floods,  pestilence,  and  a 
mutant  Wild  Kingdom.  You'll  meet  Floyd,  a 
mischievous  multipurpose  robot  with  the 
mentality  of  an  encyclopedia  and  the  matu¬ 
rity  of  a  nine  year  old.  Together  you  and 
Floyd  will  unravel  the  mysteries  of  Planet- 
fall .  $49.95. 

Deadline.  A  mystery  with  a  difference:  You 
are  the  detective.  Working  from  an  actual 
dossier,  you  face  a  challenge  so  sophisticated 
that  your  suspects  possess  flesh-and-blood 
personalities.  And  some  of  those  personali¬ 
ties  are  so  treacherous  that,  should  you  make 
the  wrong  move,  one  of  them  may  do  you  in. 
$49.95. 

Insoft,  Inc. 

Beaverton,  OR 

Wordtrix.  You  play  either  with  the  computer 
or  against  another  person.  The  object  is  the 
recognition  of  words  from  a  set  of  random 
letters.  You  gain  points  for  each  new  word 
you  find,  with  more  points  for  longer  words. 
$34.95. 

Quotrix ,  A  computer  quotation  game  for 
two  players.  Given  the  author  and  letter  po¬ 
sitions,  you  solve  a  famous  quotation  on  a 
word-by-word  basis.  If  you  incorrectly 
guess,  you  are  given  clues  by  one  of  three 
puzzle  formats!  Quotrix  includes  trivia  ques¬ 
tions,  foreign  word  translations,  crossword 
puzzles,  and  other  word  games.  $34.95. 

Mattel  Electronics 
Hawthorne,  CA 

Lock  'ri  Chase.  Maneuver  your  thief  through 
the  maze,  picking  up  coins  and  other  trea¬ 
sures.  Billy-club -swinging  cops  are  in  hot 
pursuit,  but  you  can  temporarily  escape 
them  by  locking  gates  behind  you.  The 
longer  you  survive,  the  more  valuable  the 
treasures  become.  One  or  two  players. 
$17.50. 

Burgertime.  As  you  run  through  the  colorful 
maze  assembling  the  hamburgers,  nothing 
can  stop  you  except  menacing  hot  dogs  and 
pickles  that  are  out  to  ruin  the  meal.  Bury 
them  under  beef  patties,  lettuce,  and  buns. 
Or,  knock  them  out  with  pepper.  The  game 
gets  more  difficult  as  you  get  better.  One  or 
two  players.  $17.50. 

Nightstalker.  The  relentless  robots  have  you 
on  the  run.  Destroy  one,  and  it's  replaced  by 
an  even  faster  and  smarter  one.  There's  a 
bunker  to  hide  in,  but  be  careful.  The  spiders 
and  bats  can  give  a  stunning  sting  to  slow 


for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


171 


*  ! 


WHERE  IS  IT? 

Wherever  it  is,  we  want  it.  Maybe,  just  maybe,  we’re 
searching  for  your  program,  but  we’ll  never  find  it 
unless  you  call  us. 

It  has  to  be  good,  though.  Because  we’re  The 
Software  Guild™,  an  organization  devoted  to  finding 
the  very  best  microcomputer  programs  for  packaging 
and  distribution  under  the  Softsmith™  label.  Hundreds 
of  titles  have  already  been  licensed  to  the  Softsmith 
library.  But  they’re  only  the  beginning.  Our  goal  is  to 
have  the  best  program  in  major  categories  on  every 


popular  machine.  Of  course,  we  can’t  do  it  without  you. 

If  you’re  a  program  author  or  publisher,  The 
Software  Guild  offers  some  distinct  professional  and 
monetary  advantages. 

First,  you  devote  your  time  to  what  you  do  best: 
programming.  You  can  leave  the  manufacturing, 
packaging,  documentation,  distribution  and  customer 
service  to  us. 

Second,  our  revolutionary  retail  merchandising 
system  will  put  your  program  before  the  public  through 
the  normal  computer  and  software  stores,  plus  record 
outlets,  department  stores,  book  shops,  and  more 
places  where  software  has  never  before  been  available. 


Third,  is  royalties.  Wider  distribution  means  more 
substantial  royalties.  And,  your  Software  Guild 
royalties  start  to  accrue  when  the  dealer  makes  his  pur¬ 
chase  in  quantity,  so  you  aren’t  left  waiting  while 
money  trickles  in. 

Fourth  is  flexibility.  We  do  not  insist  on  the 
exclusive  rights  to  your  program.  You  can  deal  with 
other  publishers  and  distributors,  or  market  your  pro¬ 
gram  yourself,  while  it  is  in  Softsmith  distribution. 

We  know  you’re  out  there,  working  and  dream¬ 
ing,  and  we  want  to  help  make  your  dream  come  true. 
Our  full  staff  of  professional  evaluators  are  waiting  to 
review  your  best-seller. 


So  call  us,  wherever  you  are. 

Contact  Regina  Roberts  at  (415)  487-5200. 
Or  write: 

The  Software  Guild 
2935  Whipple  Rd. 

Union  City,  CA  94587 


(415)487'5200 


\  IS  IS 


An  adventure  game  of  wits  and  strategy.  $35. 
Crisis  Mountain.  Strategy,  action  arcade 
game  that  can  blow  up  at  any  moment.  Nine 


track  conditions  and  distance  affect  the  out¬ 
come.  Color /graphics.  $25. 


Games 


you  down  and  make  you  easy  prey  for  the 
alien  robots.  $17.50. 

Microcomputer  Games 
Baltimore,  MD 

B-l  Nuclear  Bomber  You  are  pilot  of  a  B-l 
bomber  on  a  mission  over  the  Soviet  Union. 
You  must  fly  through  stiff  Russian  defenses  to 
target  site,  bomb  it,  and  return  home.  The 
computer  controls  SAMs  and  MIGs.  You 
must  rely  on  your  electronic  counter¬ 
measures  and  self-defense  missiles.  $21. 
Midway  Campaign.  Your  computer  controls 
a  huge  force  of  Japanese  ships  whose  objec¬ 
tive  is  to  invade  and  capture  the  Midway  Is- 
lanos.  In  the  actual  engagement  the  Japanese 
made  several  tactical  errors  that  cost  them 
the  battle.  The  computer  probably  won't 
make  t\\e  same  mistakes.  $21. 

Dnieper  River  Line.  A  fictionalized  engage¬ 
ment  between  the  Russian  and  German 
forces  in  the  southern  Ukraine  in  1943.  You, 
the  Dnieper  River  defense  commander,  must 
repel  Russian  efforts  to  overrun  the  thin  Ger¬ 
man  line  and  capture  sufficient  objectives  to 
attain  victory.  Counters  and  a  mounted  map- 
board  are  included.  $30. 

Computer  Football  Strategy.  The  action  is 
animated  on  a  large  scrolling  football  field: 
watch  the  quarterback  drop  back  to  pass  as 
the  defensive  players  move  on  the  intended 
receiver.  You  have  offensive  and  defensive 
formations  to  choose  from,  as  a  detailed  time 
clock  ticks  away.  $21. 

Voyager.  A  solitaire  computer  game  that 
challenges  the  human  player  to  explore  the 
four  levels  of  an  alien  spacecraft's  mazelike 
corridors  and  rooms  in  3-D  simulated  graph¬ 
ics,  all  the  while  avoiding  robots  that  are  pro¬ 
grammed  to  annihilate  intruders.  Voyager 
features  color-animated  graphics  and  sound 
capabilities.  $25. 

Galaxy.  Players  send  their  galactic  fleets  out 
to  explore  and  conquer  the  universe,  solar 
system  by  solar  system.  The  planets  you  dis¬ 
cover  may  be  barren  worlds  or  they  may 
possess  immense  industrial  capacity  and  de¬ 
fensive  ships  to  resist  colonization.  Galaxy 
allows  one  to  twenty  players  to  compete 
against  each  other  or  the  computer.  $25. 
Andromeda  Conquest.  Vast  space  strategy 
game  of  galactic  colonizing  and  conquest.  A 
game  in  which  one  to  four  players  compete  to 
form  galactic  empires  throughout  the  star 
systems.  $25. 

MicroLab,  Inc. 

Highland  Park,  CA 

Dino  Eggs.  Save  the  dinosaurs  from  extinc¬ 
tion.  Multiscreen  arcade  game  with  hi-res 
graphics.  $40. 

Death  in  the  Caribbean.  Death-defying  is¬ 
land  treasure  hunt  with  hi-res  color  graphics. 


levels,  hi-res  color  graphics.  $35. 

Miner  2049  er.  Multilevel,  arcade  game.  Hi¬ 
res  color  graphics.  You  and  Bounty  Bob  go 
deep  into  an  abandoned  uranium  mine.  $40. 

Microsoft  Corp. 

Bellevue,  WA 

Microsoft  Flight  Simulator.  A  highly  accu¬ 
rate  simulation  of  real-time  flight  in  a  single¬ 
engine  plane  (Cessna  Skylane).  It  can  be 
adapted  to  any  ability  level  with  an  easy 
mode  for  beginners  and  a  reality  mode  for  ex¬ 
perienced  aviators.  The  program  lets  user  al¬ 
ter  environmental  factors,  and  offers  the 
challenges  of  more  than  twenty  airports  with 
varying  terrain.  It  also  will  let  you  play  the 
"Europe  1917"  game.  $49.95. 

Norell  Data  Systems  Corp. 

Los  Angeles,  CA 

Valley  of  the  Kings.  Wander  along  the  banks 
of  the  Nile,  search  the  ancient  tombs,  and 
trudge  through  the  blazing  sands  of  the  Great 
Theban  Desert.  An  adventure  game  that  will 
keep  you  on  your  toes.  Loaded  with  sus¬ 
pense,  danger,  and  excitement.  Valley  of  the 
Kings  will  give  you  hours  of  challenging  fun. 
$24.95. 

Monster  Rally  Can  you  survive  Monster 
Rally 7  Visit  the  strange  little  town  of 
Arnheim  and  find  out.  Wander  through 
nearly  three  hundred  rooms  filled  with  ex¬ 
citement,  fun,  danger.  $24.95. 

Word  Wiggle.  Pit  your  skill  against  the  com¬ 
puter  to  see  how  many  words  you  can  find  in 
a  four-by-four  grid  of  letters  in  three  min¬ 
utes.  Increase  the  skill  level,  decrease  the  time 
limit,  change  to  the  five-by-five  grid.  Eleven 
skill  levels  and  a  variable  time  limit.  $34.95. 
MyChess.  A  championship  microcomputer 
chess-playing  program,  winner  of  the  Fifth 
West  Coast  Computer  Faire  (1980)  tourna¬ 
ment,  and  the  top  finisher  among  microcom¬ 
puters  in  the  tenth  ACM  North  American 
Computer  Chess  Championship  (1979).  Nine 
skill  levels  tailor  MyChess  to  any  opponent 
and  the  program  plays  varying  openings 
from  a  book  of  over  850  moves.  $49.95. 

The  Hermit's  Secret.  Outwit  the  Hermit  by 
working  through  one  hundred  and  fifty 
rooms  full  of  excitement,  fun,  and  danger. 
$24.95. 

The  Phantom's  Revenge.  Over  one  hundred 
and  fifty  rooms  of  fascinating  and  challeng¬ 
ing  adventure.  Wander  through  the  dun¬ 
geons  of  an  ancient  prison,  stroll  down  the 
aisles  of  a  magnificent  old  opera  house,  and 
match  wits  with  the  Phantom.  $24.95. 

Norfork  Systems 
Laurel  Springs,  NJ 

PC  Downs.  Excellent  party  game.  Includes 
tote  board  and  stable  of  200  horses.  Variable 


Odesta 

Northbrook,  IL 

Backgammon  5.0.  The  complete  opponent 
and  intelligent  guide  to  this  classic  game  of 
strategy  and  chance.  Features  nine  levels,  ad¬ 
vice,  and  review.  Can  save  games  to  disk.  In¬ 
cludes  comprehensive  manual  with  rules  and 
strategy  tips.  $49.95. 

Omniware 
Denver,  CO 

The  Chrome  Ranger.  A  fast-action,  arcade- 
style  maze  game  for  the  pc  and  workalikes. 
Color  and  monochrome.  Joystick  optional.  1 
Fifteen  levels  of  difficulty  with  session  high- 
score  retention.  $29.95. 

Orion  Software,  Inc. 

Auburn,  AL 

J-Bird.  A  game  of  reflexes  and  wit— not  fire¬ 
power.  As  the  J-bird,  your  goal  is  to  change 
the  color  of  your  world,  which  is  a  3-D  pyra¬ 
mid  of  colored  cubes.  By  hopping  onto  a 
cube  you  change  its  color,  marking  it  as  your 
territory.  As  you  hop  from  cube  to  cube,  you 
must  maneuver  around  a  band  of  bother¬ 
some  cartoon  critters.  $36.95. 

PC-Man.  A  fast  arcade-style  version  of  hide 
and  seek.  As  the  game  begins,  you  move 
through  a  maze,  gobbling  tiny,  white  dots  to 
gain  points  as  you  go.  But  you  must  avoid 
the  micromonsters  that  also  are  moving 
through  the  maze  seeking  a  feast  at  your  ex¬ 
pense.  $34.95. 

Pits  and  Stones.  An  ancient  game  of  skill  and 
cunning.  You  can  play  Pitman  to  sharpen 
your  wits  for  the  ultimate  challenge  of  play¬ 
ing  Pits  and  Stones  with  another  person.  Has 
six  difficulty  levels  and  an  on-line  manual 
which  demonstrates  the  rules  and  moves. 
$36.95. 

Paratrooper.  A  fast-moving  game  that  in¬ 
volves  preventing  paratroopers  from  landing 
and  staging  a  ground  attack.  Can  be  played 
with  a  joystick  or  keyboard  and  is  written  en¬ 
tirely  in  machine  language.  $29.95. 

Owl  Software  Corp, 

North  Hollywood,  CA 
Owl  Plays  Crossword  and  Chess.  Turns  your 
pc  into  an  opponent  for  chess  or  for  cross¬ 
word  games  similar  to  Scrabble.  Both  games 
play  in  monochrome  and  color,  have  multi¬ 
ple  skill  levels,  and  need  DOS,  and  128K  of 
memory.  $39.95. 

PC  software  of  San  Diego 
San  Diego,  CA 

Chess  2001.  You're  the  master  at  Chess  2001. 
With  detailed  board  and  playing  pieces,  you 
have  six  levels  of  play.  Play  against  a  friend 
or  against  your  pc.  Requires  color  display 
and  adapter.  $39.95. 


174 


SOftalk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


Play  GALACTIC  GLADIATORS"  ItfIT 
take  you  out  of  this  universe  into  a 
bizarre  world  of  alien  combat.  There  are 
four-armed  Froglodytes  with  phasors 
Viking-like  Wodamtes  wielding  laser 
swords,  and  ugly  Mutants  with  the  Death 
Touch  On  disk  for  color  mode  539  95 


When  you  first  bought  your  IBM®  PC, 
you  probably  didn't  buy  it  for  its  game- 
playing  potential.  If  nothing  else,  there 
just  wasn't  a  whole  lot  of  games  avail¬ 
able  for  your  PC  at  the  time 

But  ail  that  has  changed  now  that  SSi 
has  gotten  into  the  picture 

We  made  our  considerable  reputation 
by  producing  some  of  the  finest,  most 
sophisticated  and  challenging  games  for 
the  Apple*  Now  we  re  convening  many 
of  these  same  games  to  your  IBM®  PC 
Here  are  five  simple  ways  to  convert 
your  machine  into  something  you  never 
thought  of  -  a  truly  great  game  com¬ 
puter  After  all,  a  computer  is  only  as 
good  as  the  software  available  for  it. 

And  SSI  strategy  games  are  as  good  as 
they  come 

But  before  you  can  start,  you'll  have 
to  take  a  quick  trip  to  your  nearest 
computer/sofrware  or  game  store  where 
you'll  find  all  of  these  games  waiting  for 
you  “  today! 

Best  of  all,  they're  covered  by  our 
generous  14-day  "complete  satisfaction 
or  your  money  back"  guarantee 


drive  You'll  find  an  Earth  infected  with 
deadly  alien  microbes  Use  ali  the  means 
at  your  disposal  -  interferon,  gene 
splicing,  even  nuclear  bombs  *  to  save 
the  world  You  are  her  only  hope!  On 
disk  for  color  mode  $34  95. 


l  ij  lhseft  THE  WARP  FACTOR"  mto 
your  PC  You'll  be  zooming  through 
hyperspace  in  command  of  your  very 
own  starfleet  But  this  is  no  simple  arcade 
space  game:  You've  got  to  shoot  and 
think  at  the  same  time!  On  disk  for  color 
and  b&w  modes  $39  95 


Boot  up  TIGERS  IN  THE  SNOW" 
You'll  be  facing  an  onslaught  of  deadly 
Nazi  Tiger  tanks  in  the  snow- covered 


forests  of  the  Ardennes,  Can  you  stand 
up  to  Hitlers  fast  desperate  assault 
against  Allied  lines  in  the  Battle  of  the 
Bulge7  On  disk  for  color  mode  $39.95 


BATTLE  ram 
NORMANDY 


Pick  up  a  copy  of  BATTLE  FOR 
NORMANDY"  You’ll  be  on  your  way  to 
the  northern  coast  of  France  Bunt'll  be 
no  pleasure  cruise  since  you'll  be  lead¬ 
ing  the  most  famous  Allied  invasion  of  oil 
time  -  on  D-Dayl  On  disk  for  color  and 
b&w  modes  $39  95 


NOTE:  With  QUAD  LINK"  you'll  have  access  to 
most  of  our  three  dozen  Apple®  games. 


Af£i_E  &  a  re^jjtzjcd  trademark  of  Apofc  ComDurer  ioc 
IBM  is  0  reg-Hcred  trademsr*  of  tatemsooMfl  Buiintts,  M»:n«ncs 
OUADLtNK  a  trademark  of  d%e  Quadroon  Corooration 


STRATEGIC  SIMULATIONS  INC 

If  there  are  no  convenient  stores  near  you,  VISA  &  Mastercard  holders  To  order  by  mail,  send  your  check  tor  STRATEGIC  SIMULATIONS  INC, 

can  order  direct  by  calling  800-227-1617,  ext  335  (toll  free).  In  883  Sberfin  Road,  Bldg.  A-20G,  Mountain  View,  CA  94043  (California  rest- 
California,  call  800-772-3545,  ext  335,  dents,  add  6,5%  sales  tax.) 

WRITE  FOR  A  FREE  COLOR  CATALOG  OF  ALL  OUR  GAMES. 


Games 


Concentrate.  Try  to  see  how  accurate  your 
memory  really  is!  It's  based  on  the  popular 
TV  game  show  Concentration  where  players 
try  to  match  squares,  then  guess  the  answer 
to  the  colorful  graphics  puzzles  beneath.  Ed¬ 
ucational  for  kids  and  fun  for  adults.  Re¬ 
quires  128K,  graphics  display  and  adapter. 
$44.95. 

Armchair  Quarterback.  A  football  strategy 
game  complete  with  authentic  playing  field, 
scoreboard  with  running  clock,  team  statis¬ 
tics,  and  overtime  play.  Color  and  mono¬ 
chrome.  $34.95. 

Championship  Blackjack.  Improve  your 
play  and  win  at  the  tables.  Realistic  color  dis¬ 
play,  casino  rules  you  can  set  to  match  any 
variety  of  play,  and  a  special  statistics  screen. 
Color  and  monochrome.  $34.95. 

Personal  Computer  Products 
Santa  Clara,  CA 

Omegabug.  A  game  that  features  fast  action 
and  requires  thought  and  speed.  It  has  four 
different  speeds,  sound/ no  sound,  and  ten 
different  stages  of  play.  Color  and  mono¬ 
chrome.  No  joysticks  or  paddles  required. 
$29,95. 

QSI  Software 
Anchorage,  AK 

The  Stud  Poker  Parlor.  A  realistic  and  fast 
simulation  of  stud  poker  pitting  you  against 
your  computer.  The  pc  bluffs,  conceals,  and 
adjusts  to  your  play  much  as  a  person  would. 
You  choose  the  game,  bankroll,  ante,  and  all 
limits.  Three  skill  levels,  three  playing  styles. 
$29.95. 

Quala 

Valencia,  CA 

Las  Vegas  Blackjack.  Includes  multideck  play 
(one  to  ten  decks),  sounds,  and  graphics,  in¬ 
cluding  movement  of  cards  and  chips.  Color 
on  a  color  monitor.  $39.95. 

Quality  Software 

Chatsworth,  CA 

Beneath  Apple  Manor.  If  you  are  a  fantasy 
game  zealot,  you  will  have  to  own  this  spe¬ 
cial  edition  of  the  first  Apple  fantasy  game. 
Includes  hi-res  graphics.  Sound  effects,  more 
monster  types,  more  magic  items,  a  deeper 
dungeon,  and  a  save  game  feature.  $32.95. 

Rebel  Software 
Denver,  CO 

Pinball  Magic.  By  Tony  Jeffries  and  David 
Job.  Collection  of  four  quality  pinball  games: 
Mega  Action  Pinball,  Warzone,  Wild  Card, 
and  Castleball.  $21.95. 


Reston  Publishing  Co. 

Reston,  VA 

Triple  BrainTrUst.  By  Paul  G.  Shapin /Alice 
Rindler  Shapin.  A  game  designed  around  tic- 
tac-toe  for  ages  five  to  adult.  Players  simply 
place  their  X  or  O  in  a  slot  after  they  correctly 
answer  a  question.  The  game  is  even  expand¬ 
able!  With  Question-writer,  players  can  add 
their  own  topics  and  questions.  $39.95. 

Resolution  Software 
Providence,  RI 

Space  Miner.  Earn  as  much  money  as  you  can 
on  your  mining  voyage  by  collecting  moving 
asteroids  with  your  robot  claw  and  by  blast¬ 
ing  marauding  space  creatures.  Top  ten  play¬ 
ers,  three  play  levels,  sound  on/off,  J.S. 
Bach,  stop  action,  panic  escape,  joystick  or 
keyboard  control,  and  colorcard.  $29.95. 

Sentient  Software,  Inc. 

Aspen,  CO 

Cyborg.  A  science-fiction  adventure  written 
by  a  professional  science-fiction  author.  Al¬ 
lows  full  sentence  input  from  player.  Text 
contains  character  development,  animals 
you  can  talk  to,  opinions  from  the  Cyborg, 
and  a  sophisticated  story.  $34.95. 

Sierra  On-Line 
Coarsegold,  CA 

Frogger.  Hippity-hop  across  crowded  high¬ 
ways  and  alligator-infested  streams  to  your 
riverbank  home.  If  the  gators  don't  get  you, 
the  clock  will.  $34.95. 

Crossfire.  Reincarnating  aliens  attack  from 
all  sides.  An  ever-dwindling  supply  of  am¬ 
munition  keeps  you  on  your  toes.  $29.95. 

Sirius 

Sacramento,  CA 

Buzzard  Bait.  Pits  the  player  against  birds 
who  prey  on  humans  to  feed  their  young. 
The  player  is  on  a  rescue  mission  to  save  the 
people  from  their  fate.  A  bonus  round  for  the 
successful  player  offers  a  second  play  seg¬ 
ment.  Color  card  required.  $34.95. 

Call  to  Arms.  A  strategy  game  for  one  to 
four  players.  Players  can  choose  between  a 
map  and  scenario  of  Europe  in  1942  or 
Scotland  in  1750  for  this  challenging  game. 
Players  must  make  strategic  battle  decisions 
in  their  roles  as  military  leaders.  Requires  a 
color  card,  $29.95. 

Snake  Byte.  Lets  players  control  a  snake  as  it 
eats  apples  on  its  way  through  a  series  of 
twenty  obstacle  courses.  The  snake's  length 
and  speed  increase  with  each  apple  it  eats, 
making  it  more  and  more  difficult  not  to 
bump  into  obstacles,  itself,  or  the  optional 
Perilous  Purple  Plums.  In  addition,  penalties 
are  exacted  if  the  snake  eats  its  apples  too 
slowly.  $29.95. 

Gorgon  II.  A  computer  version  of  the  well- 


known  arcade  game  licensed  from  Williams 
Electronics.  Gorgons  are  ripping  through  the 
atmosphere,  snatching  up  helpless  humans  in 
their  talons.  The  player  in  his  or  her  fighter 
plane  must  attack  and  destroy  the  Gorgons, 
cut  speed,  dive,  and  rescue  the  now  falling 
people  and  return  them  safely  to  earth.  Ra¬ 
dar  and  hyperwarp  control  assist  in  the  mis¬ 
sion.  $39.95. 

Starside  Engineering 
Rochester,  NY 

Clutter.  An  arcade  action  game  for  either  the 
color/graphics  or  monochrome  display 
adapter.  Hit  target  ghosts  with  a  continu¬ 
ously  moving  photon.  The  only  way  to  steer 
the  photon  is  by  planting  mirrors  in  its 
path — and  the  mirrors  do  not  go  away. 
$24.95, 

Sydney  Development  Corp. 
Vancouver,  British  Columbia,  Canada 
Baseball  Manager.  Allows  the  player(s)  to 
manage  different  teams,  each  composed  of 
twenty-five  members.  Team  members  have 
individual  batting,  running,  and  defensive 
alignments,  and  managers  make  all  of  the  de¬ 
cisions  that  a  professional  manager  would 
make.  $39.95. 

TexaSoft 
Dallas,  TX 

Squirm.  In  the  dark  jungles  of  Columbia,  an 
ancient  treasure  trove  is  full  of  diamonds 
waiting  for  someone  to  take  them.  You  must 
avoid  bands  of  ghosts  as  you  collect  the  trea¬ 
sure.  $35. 

Trilogy.  Three  games  of  Middle  Earth  take 
you  to  a  time  when  dwarfs  and  ores  fought 
over  lost  treasure,  hobbits  found  treasure, 
and  dragons  ruled  the  sky.  $35. 

The  Queen  of  Hearts  Maze  Game.  The 
Queen  of  Hearts  isn't  playing  with  a  full 
deck.  It's  up  to  you  to  make  your  way 
around  a  maze  in  search  of  the  lost  cards 
while  avoiding  a  band  of  cardsharks.  $35. 
Set  the  Hostages  Free.  Ninety  hostages  are 
behind  a  stone  wall  three  layers  thick.  Your 
mission  is  to  break  through  the  wall  and  free 
the  prisoners  while  avoiding  menacing 
guards.  $35. 

Turning  Point  Software 
Watertown,  MA 

Pentapus.  Your  journey  begins  deep  in  outer 
space  in  a  vast  and  uncharted  region  of  an¬ 
other  universe.  To  return  home  you  must 
control  the  star  gates  between  universes. 
$39.95. 

United  Software  of  America 
New  York,  NY 

Survival  Adventure.  A  helicopter  drops  you 
deep  in  a  jungle.  You  have  only  twenty  days 
to  complete  your  mission  and  rendezvous 
with  the  helicopter.  $24.95. 


176 


SOftdlk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


WE  TAKE  THE  WORRY  OUT  OF 
PERSONAL  AND  BUSINESS  FINANCE 


For  many  people  managing  personal  financial  acti¬ 
vity  has  become  the  equivalent  of  managing  a  small 
business.  Best  Programs'  Personal  Computer/ 
Professional  Finance  Program,  PC/PFP  II  gives 
you  the  tools  to  make  financial  management  as  pro¬ 
fessional  as  you  need  or  want  it  to  be,  for  personal 
or  business  finance.  Set  up  your  budget,  plan  cash 
flow,  evaluate  your  assets  and  liabilities  or  just 
monitor  results.  The  PC/PFP  II  is  a  powerful  sys¬ 
tem  for  personal  or  business  financial  management 
that  puts  all  the  resources  of  a  professional  account¬ 
ing  system  at  your  disposal.  With  one  big  differ¬ 
ence!  Unlike  professional  accounting  systems,  PC/ 
PFP  II  is  designed  to  be  understandable  and  easy  to 
use.  You  will  not  need  any  financial  background 
or  specialized  accounting  skills  to  put  this  sophis¬ 
ticated,  yet  simple  accounting  system  to  work  for 
you  in  your  home  or  business. 

With  PC/PFP  II  you  can  generate  a  virtually 
limitless  number  of  customized  and  current  finan¬ 
cial  management  reports,  performance  to  budget 
reports,  bar  graphs  to  get  summary  impressions  of 
your  progress,  reports  on  your  overall  income  and 
expense  distribution,  and  keep  checkbook  and 
other  account  balances. 


PC/PFP  II  reports  give  you  all  the  information 
you  need  to  prepare  and  support  your  income  tax 
returns.  Our  program  features  the  standard  cate¬ 
gories  for  tax-deductible  expenses  used  by  IRS, 
which  makes  your  task  on  April  15  each  year  a 
whole  lot  simpler. 

With  PC/PFP  II  you  can  even  have  the  computer 
print  a  check  at  the  same  time  you  enter  the  transac¬ 
tion  into  the  system.  It  prints  the  address  of  the 
payee,  so  all  you  do  is  slip  the  check  in  a  window 
envelope  and  add  the  stamp. 

The  PC/PFP  II  takes  the  worry  out  of  financial 
management.  It's  simple,  the  PC/PFP  II  runs  on  the 
IBM  Personal  Computer  (and  the  model  XT)  with  a 
minimum  of  128KB  memory,  two  diskette  drives, 
one  of  which  must  be  double  sided,  an  80  column 
display,  a  printer  and  any  version  of  iBM-PC  DOS. 

Don't  wait  any  longer.  Control  your  financial 
future  with  the  PC/PFP  II.  For  more  information 
or  to  order  use  your  Mastercard  or  Visa  and  call 
1  -800-368-2405  or  send  $245.00  plus  $2.00  for 
postage  and  handling  to  Best  Programs,  5 134  Lees¬ 
burg  Pike,  Alexandria.  VA  22302. 

!  ’  i JBEST 
I  K  ■PROCRAMS 

“The  Quality  Software  Company  ' 


Graphics 


Alpha  Software  Corp. 

Burlington,  MA 

Type  Faces.  Offers  the  user  fifteen  different 
character  fonts  ranging  from  formal  to 
friendly  to  conform  to  any  printing  situation. 
To  increase  the  capability  of  the  user's  dot¬ 
matrix  printer,  the  program  provides  typeset¬ 
ting  capabilities  to  individuals  who  need  to 
enhance  business  presentations  or  who  want 
an  inexpensive  method  of  producing  elegant 
reports  or  flyers.  More  than  100  symbols  are 
available,  ranging  from  Roman  Complex, 
Italian  Gothic,  and  English  Gothic  to  special 
symbols  and  Greek  lettering.  $125. 

Anidata,  Inc. 

Blackwood,  NJ 

Market  Analysis.  Fast,  easy-to-use  flexible 
technical  analysis  package.  Graphs  the  basic 
technical  studies  in  addition  to  user-specified 
formulas,  and  features  split-screen  charting. 
Retrieves  updates  automatically  over  the 
phone,  and  nine  years  of  historical  data  is 
available  through  two  databases.  Also  main¬ 
tains  portfolio  recoids  and  includes  a  smart 
telecommunication  system.  $495. 

Autodesk 
Mill  Valley,  CA 

AutoCad.  A  two-dimensional  drafting  and 
design  system  which  runs  on  low-cost  micro¬ 
computers,  bringing  the  benefits  of  a  high- 
performance  drafting  facility  within  the 
range  of  the  smallest  drawing  office  $1,000. 

Axiom  Corp. 

San  Fernando,  CA 

Four-Color  Dot  Printer.  80  CPS.  Screen 
dump  software  and  interface  cable.  $599. 


BPS 

Cambridge,  MA 

BPS  Business  Graphics.  A  complete  business 
graphics  package  for  the  pc  and  XT,  The  pro¬ 
gram  complements  other  application  pack¬ 
ages,  such  as  1-2-3,  VisiCalc ,  Multiplan, 
SuperCalc  and  dBase  II,  from  which  data  can 
be  extracted  directly.  BPS  Business  Graphics 
also  allows  users  to  develop  full-color  charts 
and  graphs  in  standard  formats,  and  to  draw 
graphs  on  more  than  seventy  printers  and 
plotters.  $350. 

Robert  J.  Brady  Co. 

Bowie,  MD 

The  Graphics  Generator.  Software  graphics 
for  business  to  access  both  VisiCalc  and  Su¬ 
perCalc.  Transforms  both  spreadsheets  into 
full-color  graphics.  This  version  is  also  usa¬ 
ble  with  a  variety  of  printers  and  plotters. 
$95. 

Chang  Laboratories,  Inc. 

San  Jose,  CA 

GraphPlan.  An  integrated  spreadsheet  and 
graphics  package  with  statistical  and  sorting 
capabilities.  Graph  features  include  pie 
charts,  bar  graphs,  time-series  plots,  hori¬ 
zontal  bars,  and  scattergrams.  Supports  sev¬ 
eral  popular  matrix  printers  as  well  as  HP 
plotters.  $295. 

Data* Easy  Software 
Foster  City,  CA 

Project  Management.  Projects  can  now  be 
visually  displayed  showing  up  to  seven 
different  tasks  for  as  long  as  ninety-nine 
weeks.  Setting  up  a  progress  chart  is  as  easy 
as  filling  in  the  blanks.  $35. 


Bar  Graph  Generator.  This  utility  program 
allows  you  to  create  bar  graphs  that  display 
statistical  information.  Without  program¬ 
ming.  The  color /graphics  board  is  not  re¬ 
quired.  $35. 

Desktop  Computer  Software,  Inc. 
Santa  Cruz,  CA 

Graph  W  Calc.  Decision  support-graphics 
system  that  links  a  spreadsheet  and  graphics 
package  together.  Single-key  commands. 
You  can  develop  forecast  models  and  analyze 
statistical  and  financial  data.  A  variety  of 
different  charts  and  graphs.  $199. 

Enertronics  Research,  Inc. 

St.  Louis,  MO 

Energraphics.  A  complete  graphics  program 
including  business  graphics  (pie,  bar,  and  line 
charts)  statistics,  surface  drawing  and  con¬ 
touring,  symbol  design,  2-D  CAD  (scaling, 
overlay,  symbol  interaction)  and  3-D  object 
CAD  (scaling,  zooming,  rotation,  and  hid¬ 
den  line).  Will  interface  to  many  popular 
spreadsheets.  Printer  or  plotter  output  is 
available.  $250. 

Ensign  Software 
Boise,  ID 

Character  Generator.  With  this  tool  you  can 
define  the  shapes  of  the  graphic-character 
cells  for  the  ASCII  codes  128  to  255.  The 
work  tablet  consists  of  three  rows  of  eight  en¬ 
larged  cells  per  row.  This  multicell  grouping 
makes  it  easy  to  design  larger  shapes.  Color/ 
graphics  adapter.  $24.95. 

Color  Demonstration.  A  collection  of  ten 
color-graphics  demonstrations.  All  are  ac¬ 
cessed  from  the  menu  with  the  function  keys. 
Includes  kaleidoscope,  weave,  ensign  logo. 


178 


softcilk 


Graphics 


portrait,  stars,  prism,  string  art,  3-D  hills, 
script,  calendar.  Color/graphics  adapter. 
$24.95. 

HP  7470  Plotter  Demo .  Ten  demonstration 
programs  for  use  with  a  HP  7470  or  HP  7225 
plotter.  The  programs  can  be  modified  to 
serve  your  particular  needs.  Includes  digiti¬ 
zer,  phone  chart,  12-month  trend,  birthday 
plot,  archimedes  spiral.  $24.95. 

E  &  S  Software 
Bedford,  MA 

ES  Painter.  An  easy-to-use  drawing  and  color¬ 
ing  program  for  children.  Uses  only  the  func¬ 
tion  keys  and  joystick.  Comes  with  ES 

Picture  1,  a  disk  containing  nine  predrawn 
pictures.  $45. 

Fox  &  Geller,  Inc. 

Elmwood  Park,  NJ 

Quickcode.  An  application  generator  for 
Ashton-Tate's  dBase  II.  Uses  simple  screen 
forms  to  create  an  application,  store  and  re¬ 
trieve  data,  print  forms,  do  word  processing, 
and  perform  a  variety  of  other  functions. 
$295. 

dGraph.  A  graphics  system  that  can  be  used 
to  get  presentation-quality  pie,  bar,  line,  and 
piebar  charts.  Includes  an  easy-to-use  data 
entry  procedure  and  the  ability  to  perform 
very  powerful  analyses  of  databases  created 
by  Ashton-Tate's  dBase  II.  Can  be  combined 
with  programs  written  in  Basic,  Pascal,  and 
PL/I.  $295. 

Quickscreen.  A  program  generator  which 
lets  the  user  "paint"  a  form  on  his  CRT  and 
then  generate  programs  to  display  the  form 
for  data  entry  or  print  the  form.  There  are 
three  versions;  each  generates  program  in  a 
different  language:  C,  Basic,  Microsoft  Basic, 
and  DJR  Associates's  FMS-80.  $149. 

Frontier  Technologies  Corp. 

Milwaukee,  WI 

Business  Graphics  Board.  This  board  pro¬ 
vides  640  x  480  x  4  resolution  and  uses  the 
NEC  7220  graphics  controller.  A  proprietary 
design  allows  for  four  planes  of  640  x  480 
with  only  half  the  memory.  Compatible  soft¬ 
ware  and  emulation  of  40XX-  and  3279-type 
terminals.  $695. 

Intelligent  High  Resolution  Graphics  Board. 
This  board  provides  1024  x  1024  x  4  resolu¬ 
tion  and  uses  a  NEC  7220  and  a  local  8088 
CPU.  Built-in  primitives  provide  easy  soft¬ 
ware  control.  The  emulation  of  40XX  and 
3279  is  also  possible.  A  maximum  of  sixteen 
colors  can  be  displayed  at  once.  The  colors 
can  be  chosen  from  the  4096  color  look-up 
table  option.  $995. 

Graphpac.  Provides  various  routines  for  bar 
charts,  pie  charts,  etc.  that  can  be  used  by 


application  software  packages  such  as  Lotus 

I- 2-3  and  business  graphics.  Also  makes  pro¬ 
visions  for  CPM-GSX  interfaces  as  well  as 
GKS  and  CORE  routines.  The  software  is 
meant  for  implementation  on  the  Frontier 
Technologies  Intelligent  High  Resolution 
Graphics  board  but  could  be  modified  for 
other  hardware  by  use  of  suitable  drivers. 
$195. 

Graphic  Communications,  Inc. 
Waltham,  MA 

Graphwriter.  A  business-graphics  package 
designed  for  people  who  want  to  use  a  micro¬ 
computer  to  prepare  formal  presentations. 
All  chart  types  are  illustrated  in  a  formal  se¬ 
lection  guide  and  designed  for  use  by  un¬ 
trained  personnel.  Output  is  on  plotters. 
Screen  preview  is  optional.  Basic  set,  $395. 
Extension  set,  $395.  Both,  $590. 

Hewlett-Packard  Co. 

Palo  Alto,  CA 

HP  7470  Graphics  Plotter.  Provides  for  auto¬ 
matic  pen  changing  for  two  color  or  two  line 
widths.  Can  be  used  for  generating  paper 
plots  and  overhead  transparencies  in  8  1/2  x 

II- in  size.  Supported  on  most  of  the  leading 
graphics  software  packages.  Five  character 
sets.  $1,095. 

HP  7475.  Six-pen  plotter  provides  for  auto¬ 


matic  pen  changing  in  up  to  six  colors  or  two 
line  widths.  Can  be  used  for  generating  paper 
plots  in  sizes  8  1/2  x  11-in  and  11  x  17-in  and 
for  overhead  transparencies.  Supported  on 
most  of  the  leading  graphics  software  pack¬ 
ages.  Nineteen  character  sets.  $1,895. 

Innovative  Software,  Inc. 

Overland  Park,  KS 

Fast  Graphs.  Graphics /plotter  program  that 
creates  bar  charts,  point  or  line  graphs,  and 
pie  charts  either  directly  or  from  data  in  pop¬ 
ular  spread  sheets,  T.I.M.,  Fast  Facts.  Com¬ 
plete  draw  and  edit  capabilities  allow  you  to 
design  any  new  screen  or  saved  graph.  $295. 

International  Software  Alliance 
Santa  Barbara,  CA 

Caligraph.  Creates  pie  charts,  line  graphs, 
bar  graphs,  and  histograms.  You  define  x  and 
y  axis  labels  (or  pie  segments)  and  then  enter  x 
and  y  values.  Data  are  scaled  as  necessary 
prior  to  printing  graph.  You  can  then  either 
save  the  graph  to  disk  or  call  up  Image 
(Screen  Dump  Utility)  to  print  graph  to  your 
Epson  MX/100  or  C.  Itoh  printer.  Caligraph , 
$59.  Image ,  $35.  Both,  $75. 

Micro  Control  Systems,  Inc. 

Vernon,  CT 

3-D  Digitizing  Tablet.  Four-axis  space  tablet 


Get  InShape! 


In  Shape™  makes  it  easy  to  keep  daily  records  of  diet  and 
exercise  with  an  extensive,  computerized  food  dictionary* 
Automatic  calculation  of  points  for  aerobic  exercise.  Flexi¬ 
ble  plotting  capabilities.  InShape  can  be  used  by  anyone — 
for  any  fitness  routine! 

Order  today  from  DEG  Software, 
800/231-0627.  In  Texas, 
call  713/531-6100. 
Suggested  retail 
price  $95. 


DEG  software 

11999  Katy  Freeway,  Suite  150 
Houston,  Texas  77079 
800/231-0627,  713/531-6100. 


From  the  makers  of  PerFin,  the  personal  finance  program  for  the  IBM 'PC. 


for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  19S3 


179 


C..-« 


$k±£M-^  :  ••■ 


,MMM 


and  compact  cabinet  design.  $595. 


Graphics 


with  space  graphics  software,  $795.  Four- 
axis  space  tablet  with  advanced  space  graph¬ 
ics  software,  $1,695.  MCS  high-resolution 
A/D  interface  card,  $750. 

Micrografx 
Richardson,  TX 

PC-Draw.  An  interactive  drawing  system. 
Virtually  any  type  of  drawing  can  be  created, 
maintained,  printed,  or  plotted  on  with  PC- 
Draw  because  the  user  can  create  his  own 
symbol  libraries.  Supports  a  light  pen  and/or 
keyboard  for  user  interaction.  Graphic  func¬ 
tions  (rotation,  scaling,  and  so  on)  are  pro¬ 
vided.  PC-Draw,  $250.  Plotter  support,  $50. 

MNC  Software  Sales 
Minneapolis,  MN 

Imagedit.  A  profession-tailored  color-graph¬ 
ics  system.  Terms,  shapes,  symbols  of  your 
profession  are  preloaded  into  replaceable 
character  generator  on  color  CRT  adapter 
board.  Design  or  layout  products  or  plans 
using  familiar  language.  Edit  and  print  hard 
copy  documentation  from  Imagedit.  Images 
easily  transferred  to  other  programs.  $350. 

Mosaic  Software,  Inc.  (formerly 
Graphic  Software,  Inc.) 

Cambridge,  MA 

Softplot/BGL.  First  device-independent 
graphics  library  for  Microsoft  Basic  on  pc 
(MS-DOS)  and  CP/M  systems.  Brings  the 
power  of  sophisticated  graphics  subroutine 
packages  to  Basic.  Supports  advanced  two- 
dimensional  viewing  with  windows,  two- 
dimensional  rotation,  and  three-dimensional 
perspective  plotting.  Emuplot  feature  allows 
printing  of  high-resolution  graphics  on  print¬ 
ers,  without  graphics-display  hardware.  $200. 

Non-Linear  Products 
Minneapolis,  MN 

Plot.  A  program  for  plotting  and  processing 
data  and  curves.  Instructions  on  how  to  use 
the  program  are  given  on  the  screen,  with 
different  options  selected  by  the  function 
keys.  No  information  about  minimum  and 
maximum  values,  ticks,  or  scales  is  required. 
Created  graphs  may  be  printed  or  stored  on 
disks.  $29.95. 

Norfork  Systems 
Laurel  Springs,  NJ 

Comp-Art.  Easy  use  of  function  keys  enables 
you  to  draw  pictures,  shapes,  and  designs. 
Automatically  generates  and  saves  the  Basic 
code  to  be  used  later.  Requires  two  disk 
drives  and  color/ graphics  adapter.  $59.95. 


Number  Nine  Computer 
Engineering,  Inc. 

West  Hartford,  CT 

Graphics  Board.  2048  by  2048  resolution. 
256  of  more  than  16  million  colors  displaya- 
ble  at  512  by  512  pixels.  High-speed  image 
generation.  I/O  includes  graphics  tablet, 
camera  digitizer,  hand  controllers,  printers, 
plotters,  film,  and  tape  recorders.  RGB,  com¬ 
posite  color/B&W,  RS-170A  genlock.  Inter¬ 
preter,  Basic,  Pascal,  professional 
application  software  available.  From  $1,145. 

PC  software  of  San  Diego 
San  Diego,  CA 

PCcrayon.  Is  there  an  artist  lurking  inside 
you,  just  waiting  for  the  chance  to  create 
slide  shows,  animated  displays,  and  colorful 
graphics?  PCcrayon  s  commands  are  quickly 
learned  and  easy  to  use.  $44.95. 

The  Executive  Picture  Show.  Creates  free¬ 
form  or  business  graphics  displays  for  hard 
copy,  slides,  and  computer  presentations.  Al¬ 
lows  animated  presentations  that  run  for 
hours  displaying  hundreds  of  screens  and 
graphs  using  just  one  data  disk.  Screens  from 
other  programs  can  be  included  in  presenta¬ 
tions.  Utility  included  allows  capture  and 
storage  of  these  screens.  Requires  color/ 
graphics  adapter,  128K,  two  disk  drives  or 
hard  disk.  $195. 

Plantronics,  PC  +  Enhanced 

Graphics 

Milpitas,  CA 

Statmap.  Generates  maps  of  counties,  states. 
Zip  Codes,  federal  regions,  and  census  tracts 
in  the  United  States.  Supports  most  popular 
plotters  and  printers,  and  is  compatible  with 
DIF  spreadsheet  files.  Four  colors  with  the 
Colorplus  Graphics  Board.  $999. 

Wall  Street  Window.  Portfolio  management 
and  technical  analysis.  Up  to  twelve  months 
hi-lo-close  and  volume  data  displayed  as 
daily-weekly-monthly  screen.  Averaging, 
trendlines,  profit-loss,  spreadsheet,  and  re¬ 
porter  interface.  $395. 

Colormagic.  Enter  the  world  of  art  through 
video  graphics.  Uses  sixteen  colors  in  me¬ 
dium  resolution  and  a  keyboard,  joystick,  or 
drawing  tablet.  $149. 

Hypergraphics.  Combines  color,  graphics, 
and  animation  to  create  standalone  tutorials 
and  executive  presentations  using  sixteen  col¬ 
ors  in  medium  resolution  and  four  colors  in 
high  resolution.  Operates  exclusively  with 
the  Colorplus  Graphics  Board.  $495. 

RGB  Display  Corp. 

Grass  Valley,  CA 

RGB-1400.  Features  700  lines  resolution,  su¬ 
per  high  contrast/nonglare,  32  colors  se¬ 
lected  from  4,096  selectable  color  sets,  front 
access  calibration/control,  test  signal  per¬ 
formance  verification,  RGB-Digital/ Analog, 


Savant  Corp. 

Houston,  TX 

Graphics  Utility.  Draws  color  pictures  on 
your  computer  screen.  Create  character  sets 
and  shapes  for  your  own  programs.  Shapes 
may  be  combined  into  larger  pictures,  stored 
on  disk,  and  are  compatible  with  Basic 
graphics  statements.  Makes  copies  of  the 
shapes  on  an  Epson  printer.  Requires  color/ 
graphics  card.  $85. 

SofTech  Microsystems 

San  Diego,  CA 

Turtlegraphics.  A  machine-independent, 
adaptable  set  of  library  subroutines  that 
produces  portable,  high-resolution,  mono¬ 
chrome  or  color  graphics.  UCSD  Pascal,  For¬ 
tran-77,  and  Basic  can  be  used  to  create 
graphics  software  for  use  on  any  microcom¬ 
puter  that  runs  on  the  p-System.  Turtle- 
graphics  is  included  in  the  p-System  bootable 
system.  $75. 

Software  Labs 
Sunnyvale,  CA 

Graphics  Utilities.  Efficient  assembly  lan¬ 
guage  routines  for  PC-DOS  Pascal /Fortran, 
Lattice  C,  or  Pascal/MT+  programs.  Sup¬ 
ports  Siggraph  core's  setwindow,  setview- 
port,  and  clipping,  drawing  circle/ellipse/ 
pie/ line,  graphics  store/ retrieve,  animation 
controlling  light  pen/joystick/mouse.  110- 
page  manual.  $69. 

Slide  Master.  A  user-friendly  menu-driven 
slide  editor.  You  may  create/edit/combine/ 
archive/retrieve  pie,  bar,  line,  and  text  (nor¬ 
mal,  roman,  smooth,  and  slant  fronts) 
charts.  You  can  create/ digitize  your  logos/ 
fonts.  It  displays  on  the  screen,  printers,  and 
HP  Plotters.  $149. 

Software  Publishing  Corp. 

PFS: Graph.  A  graphics  package  that  can 
work  alone  or  use  data  from  PFS:File  or  Visi- 
Calc  files  to  produce  bar,  line,  or  pie  charts  of 
presentation  quality  in  minutes.  Line  and  bar 
.graphs  can  be  mixed  and  matched,  and  up  to 
four  graphs  can  be  displayed  on  a  single  set  of 
axes.  $140. 

Spies  Laboratories 
Hawthorne,  CA 

NicePrint.  Program  upgrades  the  IBM/Ep¬ 
son  dot-matrix  printers  to  near  daisy  wheel 
print  quality.  Works  with  WordStar  and 
many  other  programs.  Very  easy  to  use — 
user  needs  to  read  only  the  first  page  of  the 
manual  to  get  started.  Includes  six  font 
styles:  roman,  letter  gothic,  orator  large, 
script,  olde  English),  and  computer.  $95. 

Starside  Engineering 
Rochester,  NY 

Gylphix.  An  interactive  graphics  scratch  pad 


180 


softalk 


Graphics 


allowing  fast  development  of  graphics  im¬ 
ages  on-screen*  Draw  freehand  or  create 
boxes,  circles,  and  shape  tables.  Mix  text 
with  graphics,  and  use  large  "fancy"  fonts  in 
four  sizes.  Includes  its  own  RAM  disk,  549,95. 
Difmaster  A  graphics  generator  for  use  with 
Data  Interchange  Files  created  by  VisiCalc  or 
with  an  included  edit  utility.  Creates  three 
kinds  of  graphs:  3-D  vertical  bar  charts,  2-D 
bar  charts,  and  scatter  charts  with  linear  re¬ 
gression.  $79,95. 

Frieze.  A  graphics  store/dump  utility  that 
takes  graphics  images  from  the  screen  and  ei¬ 
ther  stores  them  as  disk  files  or  prints  them  to 
paper.  Supports  the  Plantronics,  Hercules, 
and  Tecmar  graphics  cards,  and  prints  to  the 
IBM/ Epson,  IDS,  NEC,  and  Okidata  print¬ 
ers  and  the  Prowriter  Prints  in  color  to 
Prism*  555, 

Fontmasler  A  character  font  editor  for  the 
128  user-defined  characters  available  on  the 
color /graphics  adapter.  Rotate,  invert,  re¬ 
verse  the  video,  create  new  characters  from 
scratch.  Explains  how  to  use  custom  fonts  in 
your  programs.  Includes  several  sample  cus¬ 
tom  fonts.  $39.95, 

Summagraphics  Corp* 

Fairfield,  CT 

The  SummaMouse.  Low-cost  digital  mouse 
for  menu  selection,  graphics,  and  text  edit¬ 
ing.  Based  on  solid-state  optical  technology, 
the  mouse  offers  up  to  100  lines  of  resolution 
per  Inch*  Available  with  either  an  RS-232  or 
TTL  serial  interface  (built  into  the  mouse  it¬ 
self)  and  is  compatible  with  all  new  Summa¬ 
graphics  product  lines,  $310,  including 
RS-232  interface. 

The  MM  Series.  Low-cost  digitizing  tablets 
designed  to  perform  all  cursor  steering,  menu 
picking,  and  graphics  tasks,  with  the  added 
flexibility  of  a  mouse.  Three  sizes  of  tilt- 
adjustable  tablets  with  either  an  RS-232  or 
TTL  serial  interface.  MM961(  6  x  9-in),  $395, 
MM  1202  (12  x  12-in),  $500*  MM1520  (15  x 
20-in)  r  $1300. 

T  &  W  Systems,  Inc. 

Huntington  Beach,  CA 
Cadapple/Versacad<  For  computer-aided 
drafting  (CAD).  $1,995, 

VersaCAD,  For  computer-aided  drafting, 
$1,995. 

Tecmar,  Inc. 

Solon,  OH 

The  Graphics  Master,  A  highly  flexible  video 
board  that  emulates  both  the  IBM  mono¬ 
chrome  board  and  color/ graphics  board. 
Supports  super-high  horizontal  and  vertical 
resolution  in  graphics  modes  (640  x  400  on 
standard  monitors)  and  allows  hhres  graph¬ 
ics  (720  x  700)  on  IBM  monochrome  -  $695. 


United  Software  of  America 
New  York,  NY 

3-D  Graphics,  Create  animated  3-D  color  im¬ 
ages  in  true  perspective  with  full  rotational 
ability.  A  powerful  screen-oriented  text  edi¬ 
tor  is  included  to  facilitate  image  formation. 
$69.95, 

3-D  Supergraphics,  Draws  3-D  color  graph¬ 
ics  so  quickly  that  animated  displays  are  pos¬ 
sible.  The  program  Is  completely  compatible 
with  integer  Basic  languages,  DOS,  and  as¬ 
sembly-language  programs,  £39.95. 

Versa  Computing,  Inc. 

Newbury  Park,  CA 

IBM  Versawriter.  A  digitizer  drawing  board 
and  software  system  that  allows  quick  entry 
of  graphics  to  the  pc  320  x  200  and  640  x  200 
screens.  Drawing  board  accepts  original 
drawings  of  up  to  8  1  /2  x  12-in.  Plugs  directly 
into  the  paddle  game  adapter’s  connector  and 
does  not  require  additional  slot  space.  $299. 
Graphics  Hardcopy  System.  Reproduces 
IBM  screen  graphics  on  the  IBM  dot-matrix 
printer.  Includes  full  or  JL  4-slze  printout,  re¬ 
verse  or  normal  inking,  density  and  offset 
control,  and  slide  show  of  IBM  graphics  ca¬ 
pabilities,  $24,95, 

Visual  Horizons 
Rochester,  NY 

Computer  Slide  Express.  Will  turn  a  pc  into 
an  art-generating  machine.  Computerized 
charts,  designs,  graphs,  and  graphics  sent  to 
Computer  Slide  Express  are  converted  into 
35  mm  color  slides  and  returned  by  mail.  En- 


Advanced  Systems  Concepts,  Inc. 
Pasadena,  CA 

Parallel  and  RS-232C  Data  Switches *  For 
electronic  or  manual  switching  of  computers 
or  peripherals*  Allows  remote  operation, 
computer  back-up,  multiport  addressing,  ex¬ 
panding,  or  printer  sharing.  Staff  available 
for  configuring  peripheral  networks.  24-hour 
ASCII  Express  Service  available.  $60-5200 
per  port. 


iargements,  black  and  white  or  color  prints 
and  overhead  transparencies  are  also  availa¬ 
ble.  $6.00  per  slide* 

West  Coast  Consultants 
Tracy,  CA 

Curve  Perspective ,  A  CAD/ CAM  graphics 
program  designed  for  use  with  most  plotters. 
The  program  plots  any  3-D  object(s)  with  or 
without  hidden  lines  removed.  Up  to  500  line 
elements,  circles,  arcs,  etc.  may  be  used.  The 
program  translates,  rotates,  and  scales  the 
image  on-screen  in  either  perspective  or 
orthographic  projection.  $450* 

Curue  Three-D.  Plots  three-dimensional 
hardcopy  graphics  of  user  data,  space 
curves,  and  mathematical  functions  of  the 
form  Y  —  F  (X,Z)  to  a  variety  of  plotters.  Full 
360  degree  rotation  of  the  surface  with  hid¬ 
den-line  algorithm,  tic  marks,  and  scale  num¬ 
bers.  $199.  With  CRT  option,  $250 
Curuefit.  Performs  up  to  four  mathematical 
fits  to  x,  y  data  that  allows  you  to  replace  the 
data  with  either  a  straight  line,  polynomial 
(up  to  degree  9),  exponential,  or  power  law 
equation.  Goodness-of-fit  parameters  are 
displayed  along  with  equation  coefficients. 
Plots  of  the  fits  and  "residuals"  may  be  di¬ 
rected  to  any  of  several  plotters*  $99.50, 
Curw  //*  A  combined  business  and  scientific 
graphics  package  designed  for  use  with  sev¬ 
eral  popular  plotters.  The  program  is  menu- 
driven  and  includes  26  Basic  subroutines  for 
highly  customized  output.  Plots  Cartesian, 
parametric,  and  polar  equations;  bar,  pie, 
and  line  charts  in  both  linear  and  log  space 
with  flexible  labeling  $275. 


Applied  Creative  Technology,  Inc. 
Arlington,  TX 

64K  Printer  Optimizer  A  64K  to  256 K 
spooler,  with  space  compression  for  more 
efficient  memory  usage*  Capabilities  include 
being  able  to  adapt  mismatched  equipment 
of  various  brands;  filter,  translate,  modify, 
merge  or  delete  data,  plus  provide  for  remote 
control  of  all  printer  functio-ns.  Options  in¬ 
clude  serial/parallei  conversion,  protocol 


Hardware 


LSI 


for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


Ha  R  DW  A  R  E 


conversion,  and  connection  of  up  to  three 
printers  with  automatic  or  manual  switching 
between  them.  64K  parallel  model,  $499. 
ET1  Squared  IBM  Electronic  Typewriter  In¬ 
telligent  Interface.  Converts  an  IBM  Elec¬ 
tronic  Typewriter  Model  50,  60,  65,  75,  or  85 
into  a  letter-quality  printer.  Includes  a  built- 
in  2,000  character  spooler,  access  to  all  type¬ 
writer  features,  and  typesetting  capability. 
Use  and  maintenance  of  the  typewriter  is  not 
impaired.  2K  parallel  model,  $495. 

Type  &  Print  Low  Cost  Typewriter  Interface. 
Converts  the  Olivetti  Praxis  Model  30,  35,  or 
40  portable  electronic  typewriter  into  a  low- 
cost  combination  computer  printer  and  type¬ 
writer.  Equipped  with  a  standard  parallel 
connection  compatible  with  most  personal 
computers.  Installation  into  the  typewriter 
involves  one  simple  plug-in  connection. 

AST  Research,  Inc. 

Irvine,  CA 

CC-232  Advanced  Communications  Card. 
Features  a  programmable  Zilog  serial  I/O 
processor  with  two  RS-232  ports  that  sup¬ 
port  async,  bisync,  SDLC/HDLC  communi¬ 
cations  protocols,  user-selectable  DTE  or 
DCE  interfacing,  and  programmable  baud 
rates  from  50bps  to  19.2bps.  Intended  for  use 
by  the  customer  designing  his  own  communi¬ 
cations  software.  $295. 

MegaPlusII.  An  IBM-compatible  multifunc¬ 
tion  card  that  features  memory  expansion  ca¬ 
pabilities  of  64K  to  512K  of  parity-checked 
memory,  up  to  two  RS-232  asynchronous  se¬ 
rial  ports,  one  parallel  printer  port,  a  clock 
calendar  with  battery  back-up,  and  an  op¬ 
tional  game  adapter  port.  $395  to  $1,240. 
I/O-PlusII.  Allows  input /output  expansion 
capabilities  of  up  to  two  RS-232  asynchro¬ 
nous  serial  ports,  one  IBM-compatible  paral¬ 
lel  printer  port,  one  optional  game  adapter 
port,  and  a  clock  calendar  with  battery  back¬ 
up.  $165  to  $315. 

ComboPlus.  Features  expansion  capabilities 
of  64K  to  256K  of  parity-checked  memory, 
one  RS-232  asynchronous  serial  port,  one 
IBM-compatible  parallel  printer  port,  and  a 
clock  calendar  with  battery  back-up.  $395  to 
$695. 

SixPakPlus.  A  multifunction  card  designed 
specifically  for  the  second-generation  pc  and 
XT  Offers  64K  to  384K  of  expandable  mem¬ 
ory,  one  RS-232  serial  port,  one  IBM  compat¬ 
ible  parallel  printer  port,  a  clock  calendar 
with  battery  back-up,  and  an  optional  game 
adapter  port.  $395  to  $945. 

Atron  Corp. 

Saratoga,  CA 

The  pc  Probe.  A  hardware /software  debug¬ 
ger  for  use  when  developing.  It  consists  of  a 
printed  circuit  card  and  software  on  disk  that 


plug  into  the  pc.  Provides  real-time  trace, 
hardware  real-time  breakpoint,  symbolic  de¬ 
bugging,  memory  protection,  and  high-level 
hardware  support.  $18.95. 

ATV  Research,  Inc. 

Dakota  City,  NE 

Diamond  TV  Camera.  Great  low-cost  TV 
camera  for  use  with  A/D  converters  used  in 
conjunction  with  computers.  Complete  with 
lens.  $135.90. 

Pixe-Plexer.  An  IC-type  modulator  kit  (audio 
and  video)  tuneable  from  channels  2  to  9.  As¬ 
sembly  time  is  about  two  to  three  hours.  Re¬ 
quires  15V  at  50ma.  This  is  a  module  kit  and 
does  not  contain  case,  power  supply,  or  in¬ 
put/output  connectors.  $24.50. 

Apple-Verter.  High  VHF  band,  high-fidelity 
RF  module  for  Apple  II,  11+ ,  He,  and  Apple 
compatible  systems.  Color  and  monochrome 
displays  on  regular  TV  sets  on  channels  7  to 
10  (tuneable).  Plugs  directly  into  computer. 
Complete  with  connecting  antenna  cable. 
$32. 

Axiom  Corp. 

San  Fernando,  CA 

Printer  Buffer.  32K  standalone  buffer.  Serial 
or  parallel  version  available.  $299. 

Back  Bay  Micro 
Burlington,  MA 

Tri-Pack.  Purchase  all  the  peripherals  needed 
for  the  pc  at  a  significant  savings.  The  Tri- 
Pack  contains  a  printer  port,  asynch  serial 
port,  and  battery  backup  real-time  clock. 
The  printer  and  asynch  are  switchable  as  one 
or  two.  Accepts  IBM  software.  $150. 

BC  Systems,  Inc. 

La  Grange  Park,  IL 

BC-20.  A  20-megabyte,  removable  disk  sub¬ 
system  consisting  of  two  10-megabyte  car¬ 
tridge  drives,  giving  you  infinite  virtual 
storage.  Network  available.  List  $4,950. 

Black  Box  Corp. 

Pittsburgh,  PA 

Personal  Computer  Printer  Adapter  Cables. 
Designed  to  allow  users  to  connect  Cen¬ 
tronics-type  printers  to  the  DB25  parallel 
IBM  connector.  Cable  comes  with  one  DB25 
and  one  Centronics-style  connector.  It  does 
not  adapt  serial  data  to  parallel.  $23  plus  .69/ 
ft. 

Byad,  Inc. 

Arlington  Heights,  IL 
DS  Series  Z-80  Boards.  Run  CP/M  applica¬ 
tion  software  on  pc.  Boards  include  64K 
RAM  and  CP/M  80  (version  2.2)  operating 
system.  DS2  also  includes  asynch  communi¬ 
cations  port.  DS1,  $660;  DS2,  $760. 

Consolink  Corp. 

Longmont,  CO 

SooperSpooler  and  MicroSpooler.  Stand¬ 


alone  hardware  print  buffers  with  their  own 
internal  power  supply.  Compatible  with  ei¬ 
ther  Centronics  or  RS-232C  serial  interfac¬ 
ing,  they  are  also  capable  of  interface 
conversion.  Standard  features  include  digital 
status  readout,  pause  function,  reset  func¬ 
tion,  protocol  conversion,  and  variable  baud 
rates.  Both  products  are  covered  by  a  one- 
year  limited  warranty.  Prices  start  at  $219. 

Control  Technology,  Inc. 

Oklahoma  City,  OK 
Model  RBS-AC.  Reserve  power  supplies  pre¬ 
vent  loss  of  data  and  equipment  damage 
from  power  outages  and  adverse  power-line 
conditions  by  providing  battery  back-up  and 
line  conditioning  for  all  hardware  connected 
to  them.  Available  in  300VA  &  500 VA  ver¬ 
sions  at  $569  and  $695  respectively. 

Corona  Data  Systems,  Inc. 

Westlake  Village,  CA 
Corona  Personal  Hard  Disk.  A  professional 
quality  10M  Winchester  disk  drive  subsys¬ 
tem  (internal  and  external  versions).  Soft¬ 
ware  compatible  with  MS-DOS  1.25, 
PC-DOS  1.1,  and  p-System  (available 
through  NCI).  Special  features:  RAM  disk, 
automatic  error  correction,  and  easy  backup 
utilities.  $2,695;  $2,295,  internal  version. 
Corona  PC  Desktop  Computer.  A  profes¬ 
sional  quality  desktop  personal  computer 
with  standard  128K,  320K  floppy,  12"  high- 
resolution  monitor,  four  expansion  slots,  and 
serial  and  parallel  ports.  Standard  software 
includes  MS-DOS,  GWBasic,  Multimate, 
and  PC  Tutor.  Optional  memory  to  512K  and 
second  floppy  or  10Mb  hard  disk.  Many  soft¬ 
ware  utilities  including  ultrafast  RAM  disk. 
$2,595-$5,320. 

Corona  PC  Portable  Computer.  A  profes¬ 
sional  quality  portable  personal  computer 
with  standard  128K,  320K  floppy,  9"  high- 
resolution  monitor,  four  expansion  slots,  and 
serial  and  parallel  ports.  Standard  software 
includes  MS-DOS,  GWBasic,  Multimate, 
and  PC  Tutor.  Optional  memory  to  512K  and 
second  floppy.  Many  software  utilities  in¬ 
cluding  ultra-fast  RAM  disk.  $2,545-$3,820. 

Cuesta  Systems,  Inc. 

San  Luis  Obispo,  CA 
Datasaver,  AC  power  backup  unit,  200  W. 
Provides  reliable  power  for  pc  and  XT.  Pre¬ 
vents  data  loss  because  of  voltage  drops  or 
transients,  AC  line  conditioning,  internal 
battery  for  5  to  15  minute  holdup,  audible /vis¬ 
ual/  electronic  alarms,  auxiliary  battery  jacks 
for  extended  time  or  portability.  Compact, 
desk-top  styling.  $695.  Foreign  power,  $730. 

Data  Encore  (Subsidiary  of 
Verbatim  Corp,) 

Sunnyvale,  CA 

The  Data  Life  Disk  Drive  Analyzer.  The 
5 1/4-in  minidisk  is  a  diagnostic  tool  that  will 


182 


SOftrcilk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


Well  give  you  a  3M  Post-it'"  Note  tray  and  a 
sample  pack  of  Post-it  Notes  — a  $4.98  value. 
Absolutely  free!  Just  buy  any  specially  marked 
box  of  3M  diskettes  and  send  in  the  proof  of 
purchase— with  75$  for  postage 
and  handling.  Complete  details 
inside  specially  marked  diskette 
boxes. 

One  3M  value 
deserves  another. 

3M  diskettes  have  long  been 
noteworthy  for  their  unparalleled 
reliability.  A  reputation  based 


on  over  30  years  experience  in  manu¬ 
facturing  high  quality  computer  media.  Now 
we’re  giving  you  one  more  good  reason  to 
use  high  quality  3M  diskettes. 

So  buy  a  specially  marked  box  of 
3M  diskettes.  And  send  for  your 
free  Post-it  tray  and  notes  today! 
Look  in  the  Yellow  Pages  under 
computer  supplies  and  parts  for 
the  3M  distributor  nearest  you. 
In  Canada,  write  3M  Canada, 
Inc.,  London,  Ontario.  If  it’s 
worth  remembering,  it's  worth 
3M  data  recording  products. 


3M  hears  you... 


Hardware 


check  the  performance  of  disk  drives  in  the 
pc  and  XT  and  some  compatible  systems. 
The  user-friendly  software  runs  four  compre¬ 
hensive  tests  to  check  head  alignment,  disk 
clamping,  write/ read  accuracy,  and  disk 
speed.  It  then  displays  a  read-out  with  evalu¬ 
ations  and  indicates  areas  needing  adjust¬ 
ment  and/or  repair.  $39.95. 

Data  Terminals  &  Communications 
Campbell,  CA 

Style  Writer.  Parallel,  complete  word  proc¬ 
essing  and  graphics,  wide  variety  of  daisy- 
print  styles,  memory  stores  up  to  twenty 
pages,  prints  more  than  130  words  per  min¬ 
ute,  automatic  proportional  spacing  and  un¬ 
derscore,  variable  pitch  and  lines  per  inch, 
red  and  black  printing,  shadow  print,  sub¬ 
script/superscript,  bidirectional  printing. 
Optional  sheet  feeder  and  forms  tractor. 
$899. 

DTC  380Z.  For  the  personal  and  business 
computer  market.  Has  48K  buffer  and  soft¬ 
ware  compatibility  with  Diablo  1640/1650/ 
630.  Daisy- wheel  printer  prints  at  thirty-two 
CPS,  bidirectional.  Sheet  feeder  and  forms 
tractor  options.  $1,495. 

Davong  Systems,  Inc. 

Sunnyvale,  CA 

Multilink.  Local-area  network  that  allows 
microcomputers  to  access  hard  disks  at¬ 
tached  to  specified  computers  defined  as  file 
servers.  Although  the  local  file  server  can  op¬ 
erate  as  a  standalone,  other  network  users  at 
remote  computers  can  access  the  file  server's 
hard-disk  storage,  subject  to  specified  control 
and  security.  Three  pcs  including  10M  hard¬ 
disk  system.  $4,595. 

Tape  Backup  System.  Streaming  tape  backup 
drive  copies  from  a  Davong  Universal  Win¬ 
chester  hard-disk  system  or  floppy  onto  1/4" 
tape  cassettes.  Three  cassette  copies  can  be 
stored  at  another  location.  The  tape  has  a 
formatted  capacity  of  eighteen  megabytes. 
Fifteen  megabytes  can  be  backed  up  in  about 
four  minutes.  Davong  Hard  Disk,  $1,795. 
Universal  Hard  Disk,  $1,995. 

Hard  Disk  System.  Universal  Winchester 
hard-disk  system.  Single-drive  systems  are 
available  in  5-,  10-,  15-,  21-,  and  32-mega- 
byte  (formatted)  capacities.  Up  to  three  slave 
drives  can  be  added  in  any  capacity  to  pro¬ 
vide  up  to  128  megabytes  of  on-line  data 
storage.  Starting  at  $1,845. 

Day  star  Systems,  Inc. 

Dallas,  TX 

Ultra55.  Five-function  board  has  memory  up 
to  384K  using  64K  DRAMS  or  up  to  1.5M 
using  256K  DRAMS,  two  RS-232  asynchro¬ 
nous  serial,  and  one  parallel  printer  port.  All 


three  channels  have  keyboard-selectable  ad¬ 
dressing,  clock-calendar  with  battery 
backup.  256K  version,  $595. 


Dresselhaus  Computer  Products 
Glendora,  CA 

Finger  Print.  A  convenient  add-on  for  Epson 
or  IBM  printers  that  puts  control  of  print 
modes  at  your  fingertips.  Condense,  empha¬ 
size,  or  even  skip  perforations  by  simply  tap¬ 
ping  the  control-panel  buttons.  Does  not 
interface  with  normal  printer  functions.  This 
plug-in  module  installs  easily  without  solder¬ 
ing,  comes  with  a  reference  label,  and  one- 
year  warranty.  $59.95. 

Frontier  Technologies  Corp. 
Milwaukee,  WI 

Multifunction  Memory  Board.  Will  provide 
a  maximum  of  256K  of  additional  memory 
per  board.  Options  include  a  printer  port,  se¬ 
rial  port,  and  a  real-time  clock.  $245. 
IEEE-488  Controller.  Interfaces  your  pc  to 
frequency  generators,  digital  multimeters, 
power  supplies,  disk  drives,  speech  synthe¬ 
sizers,  and  most  other  IEEE-compatible 
equipment.  Options  include  RS-232  serial 
port,  real-time  clock/calendar  with  battery 
back-up,  and  an  EPROM /PROM  program¬ 
mer.  $395. 

Giltronix,  Inc. 

Palo  Alto,  CA 

5500  Series  Parallel  Selecto-Switch.  Allows 
port  expansion  and  device  sharing.  Available 
with  one  I/O  port  and  two  or  three  commu¬ 
nications  ports.  Switches  lines  1  through  24. 
All  ports  have  female  D-25  type  connectors. 
$159  to  $199. 

GM  Enterprise,  Inc. 

Roselle,  IL 

ParlePC .  Plugs  into  any  available  input/out¬ 
put  slot  and  operates  under  the  control  of 
user-provided  software.  Lets  the  pc  interface 
with  the  real  world  and  has  unlimited  vocab¬ 
ulary  speech  output  for  a  variety  of  applica¬ 
tions  in  office  automation  systems,  business, 
education,  entertainment,  etc.  It  has  an  on¬ 
board  audio  amplifier,  a  speaker,  and  a  jack 
for  an  external  speaker.  $199. 

Parle  PC  Programmable,  General  Purpose, 
Parallel  Input/Output  Adapter.  Plugs  di¬ 
rectly  into  any  available  input/ output  slot 
inside  the  computer  and  operates  under  the 
control  of  user-provided  software.  Twenty- 
four  general-purpose,  TTL  compatible  I/O 
lines;  programmable  I/O  configurations; 
complete  handshaking  protocols;  bidirec¬ 
tional  bus  mode;  and  single-bit  set /reset  ca¬ 
pability.  This  adapter  supports  interrupt 
and/or  software  poll  environments.  $149. 

Harvard  Associates,  Inc. 

Somerville,  MA 

A  small,  programmable  robot  that  moves, 


turns,  draws,  blinks,  beeps  its  horn,  and  feels 
its  surroundings  with  its  touch  sensors.  An 
optional  speech  board  permits  it  to  talk — 
with  a  vocabulary  of  more  than  300  words. 
Available  in  both  serial  and  parallel  interface 
models.  $999.95. 

Hayes  Products 
San  Marcos,  CA 

Mach  II.  Joystick  provides  perfect  arm  align¬ 
ment  with  360°  of  movement,  has  fine-trim 
adjustment  for  each  axis,  incorporates  a  self¬ 
centering  feature  than  can  be  externally  dis¬ 
engaged,  and  is  constructed  with  precision, 
long-life  components.  $44.95. 

Mach  III.  Joystick  provides  the  same  features 
as  the  Mach  II  plus  features  never  before 
available  in  an  analog  joystick.  Added  fea¬ 
tures  include  a  push-button  switch  on  the 
stick  handle  and  a  stainless-steel  ball  as  its 
main  pivot  for  greater  comfort,  precision, 
and  durability.  $54.95. 

Hercules  Computer  Technology 
Berkeley,  CA 

Hercules  Graphic  Card.  A  circuit  board  that 
allows  graphics  on  IBM  monochrome  dis¬ 
play.  $499. 

IDE  Associates,  Inc. 

Bedford,  MA 

IDEAdisk.  Uses  the  3.9-inch  drive.  This  hard 
disk  drive  has  a  5.3M  (formatted)  removable 
cartridge,  and  can  be  internally  or  externally 
mounted.  The  external  version  can  be 
equipped  with  one  or  two  disks.  Both  ver¬ 
sions  come  complete  with  a  disk  drive  and 
cartridge,  controller  boards,  SASI  interface 
card,  the  required  mounting  hardware  and 
cables,  support  software,  installation  man¬ 
ual,  and  one-year  warranty.  Internal  Mount 
Version,  $1,795.  Second  disk  drive  for  exter¬ 
nal  mount,  $1,050 

IDEAplus.  Available  with  up  to  256K  of 
RAM  parity  checked  memory  plus  any  or  all 
of  the  following  functions:  parallel  interface, 
serial  interface,  and  clock/ calendar/ battery. 
The  parallel  port  can  be  configured  as  a  Win¬ 
chester  disk  drive  interface,  or  as  a  printer  in¬ 
terface.  An  RS-232C  cable  adapter  with 
DB25  is  included  with  every  serial  option. 
$329  to  $529. 

IDEA  Memory  Card.  Available  with  64K  to 
256K  of  on-board  memory,  in  64K  incre¬ 
ments.  Has  full  parity  checking  and  genera¬ 
tion,  and  meets  or  betters  all  IBM 
specifications.  $239  to  $449, 

Interactive  Structures,  Inc. 

Bala  Cynwyd,  PA 

Shuffle  Buffer.  Serves  all  major  serial  and  par¬ 
allel  computers  and  all  major  serial  and  par¬ 
allel  printers.  Prints  files  from  different 
software  together.  ShuffleBuffer  prints  what 
you  have  requested  and  the  computer  is  free 
to  do  other  tasks.  32K,  $299.  64K,  $349. 
128K,  $445. 


softalk 


Hardware 


Kraft  Systems  Co. 

Vista,  CA 

Paddle  Pairs.  Feature  an  optimum  185°  knob 
rotation  for  faster  operator  response  and 
higher  scores.  Contain  custom  potentiome¬ 
ters  designed  specifically  for  the  pc,  thereby 
assuring  the  highest  resolution  and  accuracy 
with  no  “hop."  $49.95. 

Precision  Joystick .  Features  "spring-cen¬ 
tering"  and  "free-floating"  stick  modes  select¬ 
able  by  switching  external  toggle  switches  on 
the  bottom  of  the  case,  trim  controls  on  each 
axis,  and  a  full  one-year  warranty.  It  offers 
great  versatility  for  both  business  and  game 
applications.  $69.95. 

LNW  Computers 

Tustin,  CA 

RAMless  Busboard.  Offer  the  same  I/O  ex¬ 
pansion  capability  as  the  Busboard  with  the 
exception  of  no  RAM  or  RAM  expansion 
and  no  coprocessor  slot.  Comes  complete 
with  both  the  Spoolbus  and  Busdrive  soft¬ 
ware.  $129.95. 

Z-80A  CP/M  Coprocessor  Module.  The 
high-performance  Z-80A  microprocessor  on 
the  CP/M  module  is  fully  compatible  with 
the  programs  designed  to  run  on  the  CP/M 
2.2  operating  system  and  features  disk  com¬ 
patibility  with  many  CP/M  personal  com¬ 
puters  including  the  LNW80  Model  2,  the 
Kaypro  2,  and  the  Xerox  820.  $249.95. 
Five-Inch/ Eight-inch  Floppy  Disk  Controller 
This  module  replaces  the  disk  controller  in 
the  pc  to  provide  both  the  interface  for  5-in 
disk  drives  as  well  as  the  interface  for  exter¬ 
nal  8-in  disk  drives.  Supports  both  single- 
and  double-sided  disk  drives  in  both  single- 
and  double-density  formats.  Can  be  used  by 
the  CP/M  module  to  provide  8-in  compati¬ 
bility  in  CP/M.  $169.95. 

Asynchronous  Communications  Module. 
Can  be  programmed  as  the  standard  IBM 
Com  1  or  Com  2  or  can  be  set  to  one  of  thir¬ 
teen  additional  unique  addresses  to  allow 
each  Busboard  to  contain  up  to  eight  sepa¬ 
rate  serial  asynchronous  channels  with  a  to¬ 
tal  of  fifteen  different  channels  per  pc.  $79.95. 
Parallel  Printer  Module.  Standard  IBM  par¬ 
allel  printer  interface  can  be  set  for  Line 
Printer  1  or  Line  Printer  2  port  addressing. 
Can  also  be  set  for  an  optional  Line  Printer  3. 
May  also  be  used  as  a  simple  general-purpose 
eight-bit  I/O  port.  $49.95. 

Clock  Calendar  Module.  Crystal-controlled 
clock/ calendar  with  battery  backup.  In  addi¬ 
tion  to  the  on-screen  time  display  feature,  the 
software  also  includes  a  complete  alarm 
■  function  to  allow  automatic  execution  of 
programs  when  set  time  has  occurred. 
$69.95. 

Auto-Answer  Auto-Dial  300  Baud  Direct- 

L___ _ _ 


Connect  Modem  Module.  This  modem  fea¬ 
tures  autoanswer  and  autodial  with  both 
tone  and  rotary  dialing.  The  Basic  program 
supplied  allows  for  a  smart  modem  and  a 
speed  dialer.  Interfaces  directly  with  the 
async  busmodule.  $149.95. 

Eight  Bit  I/O  Module.  This  module  provides 
for  a  latched  eight  bits  of  output  and  an  op¬ 
tionally  latched  eight  bits  of  input.  Port  ad¬ 
dressing  is  user  programmable  for  up  to  eight 
modules  per  busboard.  Interrupts  are  sup¬ 
ported  for  each  module  with  software  pro¬ 
grammable  interrupt  control  on  each 
module.  $59.95. 

Micro  Design  International,  Inc. 
Maitland,  FL 

Insider.  A  very  fast  and  rugged  hard  disk  sys¬ 
tem  that  is  completely  contained  inside  the 
pc.  10M  Winchester  disk  system,  $995. 

Micro  Disk,  Inc. 

Gardnerville,  NJ 

Hard  Disks.  For  pc  and  pc-compatibles, 
ranging  from  six  to  seventy-two  megabytes. 
Local  area  networking,  CPM/80,  CPM/86, 
Basic  Four,  BBII,  UCSD  p- System,  and  MS- 
DOS  are  supported.  $2,200  to  $7,200. 

The  Genius.  Full-page  display  provides  hard¬ 
ware  features,  user  benefits  and  system  per¬ 


formance  equal  to  that  of  dedicated  word 
processing  equipment.  $1,795. 

1-DOS  Operating  Systems.  Hard  disks  rang¬ 
ing  from  six  to  seventy-two  megabytes,  local 
area  networking,  CPM-80,  CPM-86,  Basic 
Four  BBII,  UCSD  p-System,  and  PC-DOS 
are  supported.  $2,200  to  $7,200. 

Micromax  Systems,  Inc. 

San  Diego,  CA 

PC/Colormax.  A  multifunction  combo  card 
that  offers  IBM  monochrome  support,  color/ 
graphics  support  for  RGB,  composite  video 
and  standard  black/white  monitors,  plus 
parallel  printer  adapter  all  on  a  single  expan¬ 
sion  card.  Features  16K  RAM  plus  light  pen 
input  in  monochrome  mode  and  parallel 
printer  port  in  color/graphics  mode.  Com¬ 
patible  with  IBM  monochrome  board,  IBM 
color/graphics  adapter,  and  IBM  parallel 
printer  interface  card.  $479.95. 

Micro  ware,  Inc. 

Kingston,  MA 

8087-3  Numeric  Coprocessor.  Speeds  up  the 
IBM  pc  compiled  and  assembled  code  by  fac¬ 
tors  of  five  to  one  hundred.  The  coprocessor 
fits  into  the  40-pin  socket  adjacent  to  the  8088 
on  the  pc  and  XT  motherboard.  Software 
support  is  available  to  drive  the  chip.  Six- 


YOUR  BUSINES 

Business  management  software  from  DATAMENSION  CORPORATION  has 
become  the  choice  of  professionals  like  you.  For  a  good  reason.  You’re  disappointed 
by  software  that’s  high  on  visibility  but  low  on  performance.  And  your  business 
demands  more. 

You  want  a  spreadsheet  with  more  power  and  the  convenience  of  active  pages 
in  memory.  Our  Report  Manager®  has  pages— along  with  programm  ability  and 
application  generation.  You  want  to  integrate  diverse  areas  of  your  daily  business 
life.  The  Manager  Program  Collection  contains  three  programs  that  help  you  manage 
time,  people,  and  projects  more  effectively  than  ever  before.  Task  Manager  puts 
you  in  control  of  your  schedules  and  appointments.  You’ll  plan  projecis  faster  and 
more. effectively  with  Project  Manager's  critical  path  analysis.  Records  Manager 
builds  definable  client  and  employee  information  files.  All  three  programs  share  data 
to  broaden  your  base  of  applications. 

Add  a  personable  and  competent  support  staff  to  software  power  like  this, 
and  you’ve  come  to  know  DATAMENSION  CORPORATION.  Creators  of  business 
solutions  for  professionals  since  1971 . 

- \  Report  Manager^  for  the  IBM/PC/XT  and  compeiibfess  feat.  ng. 

. -  1104)  and  Victor  9000,  (cat.  no.  1904),  $399.  Manager  Program 

^  ~  ■ —  —  Collection  for  the  IBM/PC/XT  and  compaiiblBJi  feat.  no.  1105) 

j  _ =  and  Victor  9000,  (cat.  no.  1905)  $499.  Available  at  participating 

“  ~  "  “  "  ComputerLand  and  other  business  computer  stores. 


- P  —  i-r - 


-..w'wwJw  NEW  DIMENSIONS  IN  DATA  MANAGEMENT”1' 


DATAMENSION  CORPORATION 


615  ACADEMY  DRIVE  •  NORTHBROOK,  IL  60062  •  (312)  564-5060 


for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


185 


Hardware 


month  warranty.  $223  with  8088  exchange. 

Northwest  Instruments  Systems, 

Inc. 

Beaverton,  OR 

mu- Analyst  Interactive  State  Analyzer.  A 
real-time  software  debugging  tool.  Uses  an 
external  mainframe  and  can  be  configured 
with  from  sixteen  to  eighty  channels.  Selec¬ 
tive  storage  of  data  is  possible  using  fifteen 
trigger/store  states  and  four  word  recogni¬ 
zers  per  state.  The  system  is  fully  program¬ 
mable  using  Pascal  or  assembly  language. 
Basic  sixteen-channel  system,  $2,995.  Six¬ 
teen-channel  expansion  cards,  $895  each. 

Personal  Computer  Products 

Santa  Clara,  CA 

RS-232  Analyzer  A  plug-in  adapter  that 
shows  the  RS-232  devices.  It  may  be  left  per¬ 
manently  wired  in  any  circuit.  $149.95. 

Persyst 
Irvine,  CA 

Timeport.  A  single-board  multifunction 
module  that  offers  a  calendar  clock,  one  or 
two  asynchronous  serial  ports,  and  a  parallel 
printer  port.  $225. 

Uniport .  A  calendar  clock  and  bidirectional 
parallel  printer  port  on  a  single  module. 
$155. 

Time-Spectrum.  A  single-board  multifunc¬ 
tion  module  that  offers  a  calendar/clock, 
three  I/O  ports,  and  memory  expansion  up 
to  512K.  $395. 

DCP-88.  An  8088-based  communications 
processor  module  that  offers  synchronous/ 
asynchronous  communications  and  supports 
async,  bisync,  HDLC,  and  SDLC  protocols 
and  line  printers  to  600  1pm.  $695. 

Plantronics,  PC+  Enhanced 

Graphics 

Milpitas,  CA 

Colorplus  Graphics  Board.  Includes  sixteen 
colors  in  medium  resolution,  four  colors  in 
high  resolution;  parallel  printer  port;  com¬ 
patible  with  existing  pc  software.  Includes 
two  graphic  applications.  $559, 

Prelude  Computer  Corp. 

Cupertino,  CA 

Serial  Port  Plus  Clock  Card.  IBM  pc/XT  ex¬ 
pansion  card  with  IBM-compatible  serial- 
communication  port  and  battery  backed  up 
clock /calendar.  Fits  XT  small  slot.  Utility 
disk  provides  clock  software.  One-year  war¬ 
ranty.  $129. 

Printer  Port  Plus  Clock  Card.  IBM  pc/XT  ex¬ 
pansion  card  with  IBM- compatible  printer 
port  and  battery  backed  up  clock /calendar. 
Fits  XT  small  slot.  Utility  disk  provides 


print  spooling  and  clock  software.  One- 
year  warranty.  $129. 

384K  Memory  Plus  Game  Adapter  Port 
Card.  Expands  pc/XT  memory  to  640K  bytes 
if  you  have  256K  system  board,  to  448K  if 
you  have  64K  system  board.  Includes  IBM 
compatible  game  adapter  port  all  on  one 
card.  One-year  warranty.  $229. 

Six  Function  Card.  Expansion  board  for  pc/ 
XT  features  IBM-compatible  game  port,  se¬ 
rial  port,  printer  port,  clock/calendar  and 
memory  expansion  of  up  to  256K  bytes.  Util¬ 
ity  disk  provides  print  spooling  and  clock 
software.  One-year  warranty.  $269  with  no 
installed  memory.  Tested  64K  RAM  chip  set, 
$69. 

Quadram  Corp. 

Norcross,  GA 

Microfazer.  A  universal  print  buffer  with  8K 
to  512K  RAM.  Receives  information  in  its 
memory,  then  sends  it  to  the  printer  at  an  ap¬ 
propriate  speed.  Comes  with  a  copy /pause 
feature  allowing  additional  copies  of  the 
buffered  information.  The  unit  is  sized  to 
stack  with  popular  modems  and  other  pe¬ 
ripherals.  $159  (8K),  $189  (16K),  $225  (32K), 
$299  (64K),  $895  (256K),  and  $1395  (512K). 
Serial-to-parallel  and  parallel-to-serial,  $199 
(8K),  $220  (16K),  $260  (32K),  and  $330 
(64K). 

Quadboard.  A  six-function  expansion 
board.  Designed  to  increase  capabilities  at 
minimum  cost  while  using  only  one  internal 
expansion  slot.  The  functions  provided  in¬ 
clude  RAM  expansion  from  64K  in  64K  in¬ 
crements,  and  EIA  RS-232C  serial  interface 
for  asynchronous  communication,  a  Cen¬ 
tronics-compatible  parallel  interface  for 
printer  driving,  and  a  battery-powered 
quartz  clock/calendar  to  keep  your  pc's  in¬ 
ternal  clock  always  on  time.  64K,  $395. 
256K,  $595. 

QuadColor  Color  Video  Cards.  Has  color 
bit-mapped  graphics  of  640  by  200,  or  640  by 
400  pixels  in  up  to  128  colors  at  once  on  the 
screen.  Each  dot  can  be  individually  ad¬ 
dressed  and  Quadcolor  offers  twice  as  much 
memory  as  IBM's  board  (32K  compared  to 
54K) ,  In  the  text  mode  this  extra  memory  al¬ 
lows  twice  as  many  active  and  visual  pages  as 
IBM's  Color  Graphics  Adapter:  sixteen  in  40- 
column,  eight  in  80-column.  In  the  graphics 
mode,  the  extra  memory  allows  the  user  to 
create  two  complete  pages.  IBM  can  offer 
only  one  page  in  the  graphics  mode.  Two 
QuadColor  video  cards  are  available:  Quad- 
Color  I,  hardware  and  software  compatible 
with  the  IBM  Color/Graphics  Monitor 
Adapter,  $295.  QuadCoIor  II  with  bit¬ 
mapped  resolution  of  640  horizontal  by  200 
vertical  pixels,  $275. 

Quadlink.  Allows  Apple  software  to  be  used 
in  the  pc.  Quadlink,  a  simulated  Apple  com¬ 
puter  on  one  board,  is  installed  in  one  IBM  pc 
expansion  slot.  Translates  Apple's  DOS  3.3 


software  into  language  the  pc  can  under¬ 
stand.  There  is  no  need  to  convert  or  refor¬ 
mat  any  disks.  $680. 

Qume  Corp. 

San  Jose,  CA 

Sprint  11/40-130  Plus.  Daisy  wheel  printer, 
available  in  standard  15-inch  width  or  wide- 
track  format.  Offers  a  22-inch  carriage  width 
and  can  be  used  for  spreadsheet  applications, 
as  well  as  large  format  information  displays 
and  has  a  print  line  of  293  characters.  $2,965. 
QVT-103  terminal.  Comes  with  a  standard 
12-inch  or  optional  14-inch  viewing  screen  in 
either  green  phosphor  or  amber.  The  termi¬ 
nal  has  a  full  tilt /swivel  adjustment  and  a 
low  profile,  detached  keyboard.  $1,095. 

R&H  Electronics,  Inc. 

Buellton,  CA 

Guardian  Angel.  Uninterruptible  power  sup¬ 
ply  provides  protection  against  data  loss  oc¬ 
curring  from  blackouts,  brownouts,  and 
power  surge.  $595. 

RB  Robot  Corp. 

Golden,  CO 

RB5X:  The  Intelligent  Robot.  Completely 
programmable  personal  robot.  Comes  fully 
assembled,  with  software  that  allows  it  to 
learn  its  environment;  sonar  and  tactile  sen¬ 
sors;  charger-finder  routine;  and  an  array  of 
options,  including  an  arm,  vacuum  attach¬ 
ment,  and  a  robot  control  language  that  al¬ 
lows  you  to  program  robot  using  common 
English.  $1,795. 

SCION  Corp. 

Reston,  VA 

PC640  Professional  Color.  A  high-perform¬ 
ance  color  graphics  display  system  which 
provides  640  by  480  resolution  and  enables 
the  user  to  simultaneously  display  16  colors 
chosen  from  a  palette  of  4096.  The  PC640 
comes  with  HALO,  a  library  of  powerful 
graphics  primitives.  $1,595. 

Seattle  Computer  Products,  Inc. 

Seattle,  WA 

RAM+3.  A  multifunction  card.  A  serial 
port,  a  parallel  port,  a  lithium  battery-pow¬ 
ered  clock,  and  a  variety  of  expansion  mem¬ 
ory  options,  from  OK  to  256K.  $210  to  $620. 
8087  Package.  Includes  both  the  8087  float¬ 
ing  point  math  coprocessor  and  two  types  of 
software.  One  program  lets  you  run  your 
regular  Basic  programs  and  substitutes  the 
8087  routines  where  they  are  faster.  The 
other  program  allows  you  to  include  8087  co¬ 
processor  instructions  when  you  are  using 
the  IBM  (Macro-86)  Assembler.  $395. 

Security  Microsystems  Consultants 
Staten  Island,  NY 

Quickon.  A  module  that  allows  the  pc  to 
boot  up  within  four  seconds  of  turning  on 


186 


softalk 


Hardware 


power,  regardless  of  how  much  memory  the 
pc  has.  Simple  to  plug  in  and  requires  no  ex¬ 
pansion  slot.  Works  with  all  pcs  except  the 
XT.  $49. 

Staff  Computer  Technology 

San  Diego,  CA 

The  Key.  A  hardware  module  that  works  in 
conjunction  with  software  to  protect  soft¬ 
ware  from  being  printed.  The  module  is  eas¬ 
ily  installed  in  the  gameport.  The  key  is 
factory  programmed  with  a  security  code. 
Each  software  supplier  can  have  a  code 
known  only  to  it.  The  end  user  is  free  to 
make  as  many  backup  copies  as  needed,  but 
can  run  them  only  if  the  key  is  installed. 
Quantity  of  100  at  $60. 

StarLogic 

Chatsworth,  CA 

Internal  5  1/4-in  Floppy  Drives .  One  side, 
$160.  Two  sides,  $210. 

Internal  Half-Height  5  1/4-in  Floppy  Drives. 
One  side,  $210.  Two  sides,  $420, 

5  1/4-in  Winchester  Disk  Systems.  $1,295- 
$1,695. 

Sysgen,  Inc. 

Fremont,  CA 

Sysgen  11-10  and  Sysgen  11-20.  Winchester- 
type  drives  provide  storage  of  10M  or  20M 
respectively,  with  built-in  streaming  tape 
backup.  For  use  with  the  pc  using  PC-DOS 
or  CP/M-86.  Backs  up  10M  in  two  minutes. 
Allows  backup  by  individual  files  or  whole 
disk  volume  in  image  fashion.  Sysgen  11-10, 
$2,995.  Sysgen  11-20,  $3,795. 

Sysgen  Image.  A  20M  streaming  tape  backup 
for  XT,  pc  on  pc-expansion  chassis.  Designed 
to  operate  with  PC-DOS,  backs  up  at  a  rate 
of  up  to  3.5  Mbytes  per  minute.  Allows 
backup  up  to  20M.  $995. 

Tall  Tree  Systems 
Palo  Alto,  CA 

]RAM.  A  512K  memory  board  for  the  pc, 
XT,  and  compatible  machines.  A  hardware 
pager  allows  more  than  640K  in  any  system. 
Software  is  included.  JFORMAT  for  DOS 
1.10  and  JETDRIVE  for  DOS  2.0.  $800. 

Tamtron 

San  Jose,  CA 

PCaL.  A  track-seek  program  for  the  pc  and 
look-alikes.  A  technician  needs  a  dual  trace 
scope  with  external  trigger,  a  Dysan  reference 
disk  (optional  with  PCaL),  and  the  OEM 
manual  for  the  drive.  With  PCaL  all  practical 
functions  can  be  tested.  $150-$200. 

Tecmar,  Inc. 

Solon,  OH 

The  IEEE  Interface.  Implements  IEEE-488  in¬ 


dustry  standard  to  enable  the  pc  to  operate  as 
system  controller  or  as  an  addressed  talker/ 
listener.  Has  DMA  and  interrupt  capabilities. 
Available  library  of  machine  language  sub¬ 
routines  called  from  Basic  or  Fortran  for  data 
transaction  with  GPIB.  $395. 

The  Lab  Master.  A  sophisticated  system  that 
includes  sixteen  channels  of  12-bit  A/D  with 
a  30  KHz  conversion  rate,  two  channels  of 
12-bit  D/A,  five  timer/counters,  and  three 
8-bit  parallel  ports.  Options  include  pro¬ 
grammable  gain  up  to  1,000,  14-  and  16-bit 
accuracy,  40  and  100  Khz  conversion,  and  up 
to  256  channels.  From  $995. 

The  Voice  Recognition  Board.  Permits 
“hands  off"  computer  control  by  providing  a 
highly  accurate  user-trained  voice-recogni¬ 
tion  system .  A  100-word  vocabulary  can  be 
stored  in  8  kilobytes  of  on-board  dynamic 
memory.  Optionally,  16  kilobytes  of  CMOS 
memory  can  be  installed  on  the  board,  pro¬ 
viding  storage  for  up  to  200  words.  $995. 
The  Captain.  Performs  eight  key  functions  in 
one  expansion  slot  upgradable  memory  to 
384K.  Features  a  clock /calendar,  serial 
port  (COMl  or  COM2),  parallel  port 
printer,  print  spooling  utility,  and  PAL  option 
to  restrict  certain  information  on  a  “need  to 
know"  basis.  $795. 

The  2ndMate.  Has  the  I/O  capabilities  of 
four  standard  pc  options,  plus  clock/calen¬ 
dar  and  PAL  software  lock-out  option.  Pro¬ 
vides  two  serial  ports  that  mimic  the 
operation  of  two  IBM  asynchronous  com¬ 
munications  adapters  and  two  printer  ports. 
$295. 

The  3rdMate.  Gives  the  I/O  capabilities  of 
three  standard  pc  options,  plus  clock/calen¬ 
dar,  direct-connect  telephone  modem,  and 
PAL  software  lock-out  option.  Provides  one 
serial  port  and  two  printer  ports.  $445. 

The  IstMate  Board.  Combines  serial  port 
(COMl  or  COM2),  parallel  port  (LPT1), 
clock /calendar  with  battery  backup,  up  to 
256  kilobytes  memory,  and  optional  pro¬ 
grammable  lock-out  to  protect  access  to  ma¬ 
chine  or  software.  $389. 

Tesserax,  Inc. 

Homosassa  Springs,  FL 
Y -Cable.  Allows  simultaneous  use  of  two 
IBM-compatible  joysticks  on  the  pc.  $49.95. 

Titan  Technologies 

Ann  Arbor,  MI 

Titan.  The  SASI-compatible  hard  disk  host 
adapter  and  parallel  port  includes  clock 
calendar,  serial  ports,  and  RAM  memory 
(64K  to  576K).  $695. 

Total  Logic  Corp. 

Fort  Collins,  CO 

LA-200.  Transforms  the  pc  into  a  logic  ana¬ 
lyzer  for  data  analysis,  software  tracing,  doc¬ 
umentation,  and  storage.  Features:  15-MHz 


IEVTKRS 

NUMBERS 

NNB 

HERBS™ 


By  ELMER  LARSEN 
“My  Letters.  Numbers,  and 
Words”  is  a  pre-primary 
educational  software  package  for 
children  from  one  to  five. 
Children  are  taught  the 
alphabet,  the  numbers  from  one 
to  ten  and  the  concept  of  words 
through  animated  flash-card 
routines  and  graphic  displays. 
Excellent  For  Children  With 
Reading  Disabilities. 

“ The  program  fs  attract irv 
graphic  and  sound  features 
will  help  keep  your  child's 
attention .  We  are  amazed  at  the 
amount  of  ti me  a nd  effort  wh  ich 
went  into  the  creation  of  this 
program.  We  wish  it  were  one  of 
ours!" 

Keith  Oswald  and  Joseph  Juhasz 
of  PCsoftware,  San  Diego,  CA 

PCsoftware 

For  the  IBM  PC*,  Compaq*,  and 
Columbia  MPC*  with  64K  RAM, 
One  160K  or  320  K  disk  drive,  DOS 
1.1  or  2.0,  Basica,  Color  Graphics 
Board,  and  Color  or  Mono-chrome 
Monitor. 

Orders  &  Information 

$39.95  -  Postage  &  Taxes 
included. 

VISA  or  Mastercard  orders  call: 
(CA)  1-619-459-9173 
(NAT)  1-800-624-2262 

Dealers  contact  Vitek 
(CA)  1-800-237-7290 
(NAT)  1-800-237-3443 

or  send  check  or  money  order  to: 
STONE  &  ASSOCIATES 
Software  Publishing  & 
Marketing,  Inc. 

7910  Ivanhoe  Ave.,  Suite  319 
La  Jolla,  CA  92037 

•Registered  Trademark. 


for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


187 


Hardware 


capture  rate,  32 -charm el  data  path,  six  dock 
qualifiers,  eight  levels  of  start /end  triggers 
with  four  windows  in  path,  bit/ timing  dis¬ 
play  on  screen  or  hard  copy.  Si  ,750. 

Transtar/Vivitar  Computer 

Products 

Bellevue,  WA 

Transtar  120  Daisywheel  Printer  Compact, 
light,  and  portable.  Prints  at  fourteen  charac 
ters  per  second.  Diablo  1610/1620  code  com¬ 
patible  with  most  of  the  leading  word 
processing  packages  on  the  market.  Includes 
a  six-month  parts  and  labor  warranty.  $599. 
Transtar  130  Daisywheel  Printer  Compatible 
with  all  major  word  processors  using  Diablo 
1610/1620  routines.  Autoload  feature  auto¬ 
matically  loads  a  single  sheet  of  paper  into 


one  of  four  selectable  positions  ready  to 
print.  $895. 

Transtar  315  Color  Graphics  Printer.  A 
unique  four-hammer  printhead  allows  the 
315  to  print  up  to  thirty  shades  of  color  on  a 
single  pass.  $599. 

Universal  Computer  Products 
Irvine,  CA 

The  L/SM-L  A  speech  and  sound  synthesizer 
with  a  continuous  speech  of  unlimited  vocab¬ 
ulary,  having  the  excellent  quality  of  the  new 
Votrax  SC-02.  It  also  provides  six  voices  of 
music  and  sound  effects,  IBM  game  adapter, 
dock-calendar,  Centronics  port.  $445. 

V  R  Data  Corp* 

Folcroft,  PA 

The  Panther  Low  profile  5M  removable 
hard-disk  cartridge  drive.  Ideal  for  backup  of 


a  fixed  hard  disk.  $1,495. 

The  Panther  Low  profile  5M  hard  disk  (sub¬ 
system)  includes  drive,  controller  power 
supply.  $1,395. 

Hard  Disk  III  Five-megabyte  hard  disk  drive 
(subsystem)  includes  controller,  powder  sup¬ 
ply,  drive.  $995. 

Hard  Disk  III.  Ten-megabyte  hard  disk  drive 
(subsystem)  includes  controller,  power  sup¬ 
ply,  and  drive.  $1,249. 

Fifteen-megabyte  hard-disk  drive  (subsys¬ 
tem)  includes  controller,  power  supply,  and 
drive.  $1,449, 

Hard  Disk  III .  Dual  1QM  hard  disk  (subsys¬ 
tem)  with  20  megabytes  total  Includes  two 
10M  drives,  controller,  and  power  supply. 
$1,999. 

Clock  Calendar  DOS  compatible  Comes 
with  software  driven  Will  fit  in  any  slot  in¬ 
cluding  the  small  slot  in  back  comer.  Three- 
year  lithium  battery  backup,  $74,95. 


Home 


The  BBE  Co, 

Houston,  TX 

jogger  Logger.  A  computerized  runners  di¬ 
ary  that  allows  the  user  to  record  and  accu¬ 
mulate  distances,  times,  and  conditions  by 
date;  summarizes  and  computes  average  rate 
(pace)  and  other  statistics  by  month  and 
year  and  keeps  an  accurate  record  of  a  run¬ 
ning  program.  $19.95,  plus  $2  shipping. 
Greetings.  An  address  book  with  birthday 
and  anniversary  memory  prompters  that 
also  details  the  thirty  major  holidays  and 
gift-giving  occasions  by  date  and  day  of  the 
week  through  1987.  Greetings  also  produces 
alphabetized  mailing  lists  and  includes  mod¬ 
em  and  traditional  gift  ideas  for  anniversa¬ 


ries  and  birthdays  $19,95,  plus  $2  shipping. 

BPI  Systems,  Inc, 

Austin,  TX 

DPI  Personal  Accounting ,  Brings  computer¬ 
ized  accounting  home.  Manages  finances 
quickly,  accurately.  Provides  exercises  on 
sample  books,  built-in  or  customized  ac¬ 
count  codes.  Records  financial  transactions. 
Automates  bank  reconciliations  and  budg¬ 
ets.  Prints  checks.  $195, 

CoIorCorp 

Bloomfield  Hills,  MI 

ColorBiz  Loan.  Analyze  numerous  financing 

alternatives,  make  a  quick  analysis  of  vari¬ 


ous  loan  situations.  Calculates  any  loan 
value,  stores  loans,  and  prints  or  displays 
monthly  or  yearly  amortization  schedules. 
Check  loan  status  for  the  period  desired.  De¬ 
termine  balloon  payoffs,  cash  requirements, 
and  so  on.  $29.95. 

ColorBiz  Diet.  Calculate  nutritional  content 
of  food  by  calorie,  fat  content,  carbohy¬ 
drate,  protein,  and  vitamin  and  mineral  val¬ 
ues,  Chart  daily  intake,  determine  ideal  food 
consumption,  maintenance  level,  weight 
gain  or  loss,  requirements  for  high  endurance 
and  stamina.  Select  from  basic  food  groups 
and  requirement  and  have  a  computer  calcu¬ 
late  your  meals  with  preferences.  $49,95, 
ColorBiz  Biorhythm.  Charts  the  natural 


136 


softolk 


Home 


body  cycles  in  personal,  social,  or  business 
situations.  Includes  congeniality  compari¬ 
sons,  display  and  graphic  printout,  storage 
and  retrieval  of  names  and  birthdates,  and 
thorough  biorhythm  reference  guide.  $29.95. 

Compu-Quote 

Canoga  Park,  CA 

Coins.  Allows  a  coin  collector  to  catalogue 
an  entire  collection  and  obtain  various  re¬ 
ports  that  provide  personal  investment  infor¬ 
mation.  The  principal  feature  of  Coins  is  a 
built-in  market  value  file  that  supplies  latest 
pricing  information.  $95,  plus  $1.50  ship¬ 
ping.  California  tax  6  percent.  Quarterly 
market  value  updates,  $25. 

Computer  Age  of  San  Francisco 

San  Francisco,  CA 

Personal  Mailer.  Searches  and  sorts  on 
twelve  data  fields.  Data  field  lengths  may  be 
defined.  Files  searched  by  keys.  Data  files 
may  be  redefined  without  data  reentry.  Prints 
optional  labels  up  to  one,  two,  or  three 
across.  Can  be  used  with  Mailmerge.  Pro¬ 
gram  capacity,  65,535  records.  MS-DOS 
compatible.  Requires  128K.  $79.95. 


Continental  Software 

Los  Angeles,  CA 

The  Home  Accountant.  Personal  and  small 
business  financial  management  program, 
tracks  finances  automatically.  The  program 
budgets,  forecasts,  keeps  track  of  check¬ 
books,  reconciles  bank  statements,  and 
prints  checks.  $150. 

Cortland  Data  Systems 
Chicago,  IL 

The  Electronic  Checkbook.  Has  up  to  100 
budget  categories,  prints  checks  using  a 
standard  format,  or  allows  creation  of  indi¬ 
vidual  formats.  Enter  data  rapidly  using  a 
quick  coding  system.  $120. 

Craftsbury  Software 
Washington,  DC 

Micro  Chef.  A  professional  menu  planner 
now  available  for  the  home.  Specially  se¬ 
lected,  fully  tested  gourmet  recipes  from 
around  the  world.  Rescales  serving  sizes, 
prints  shopping  lists,  finds  lost  or  forgotten 
recipes  instantly,  prints  recipes  in  3  x  5  card 
format,  and  creates  personalized  recipe 
disks.  $39.95. 

Wine  Connoisseur.  A  combination  cellar  in¬ 
ventory  and  record  of  tasting  notes  that  pro¬ 


vides  quick,  accurate  access  to  information 
on  all  wines  in  storage  and  pinpoints  the  right 
wine  for  the  occasion  in  moments.  It  features 
fifteen  inventory  descriptors,  twelve  tasting 
descriptors,  and  comes  with  an  instructional 
disk  that  teaches  how  to  select  and  taste 
wines.  $39.95. 

Memory  Jogger.  A  flexible  appointment  and 
event  calendar  calibrated  for  the  next  100 
years.  It  never  forgets  a  bill,  birthday,  en¬ 
gagement,  or  project  deadline.  It  features 
one-time  entry  for  recurring  events  and  rapid 
search  over  all  fields.  The  day  of  the  week  is 
computed  automatically,  and  events  are 
listed  in  chronological  or  alphabetical  order. 
$39.95. 

Personal  Wealth.  A  comprehensive  inven¬ 
tory  system  for  keeping  track  of  investments, 
valuables,  and  other  personal  possessions. 
Perfect  for  insurance,  stock  market,  war¬ 
ranty,  estate  purposes,  and  so  on.  Includes 
seventeen  descriptor  fields,  multifield  search, 
sort  by  item  name  or  category,  and  math 
functions.  $39.95. 

People  Tracker.  A  mailing  list  and  address 
book  program  that  features  instant  multifield 
search,  name  or  Zip  Code  sort,  labels  in  up  to 
four  columns,  customized  print  formats,  spe¬ 
cial  multiple  coding  fields,  auto  date,  and 
comment  line.  $39.95. 


Making  money  is  one  thing . 

Managing  it  is  something  else . 


The  Smart  Checkbook  does  the  job.  Manages 
your  money  the  way  you  want  it  managed — easily. 

Imagine:  push  a  button  and  get  family  budget 
reports,  net  worth  statements,  tax  records. 

Custom  reports,  too.  Know  where  your  monies 
go,  accurate  to  the  penny  and  well  organized. 

“Instant  Reconciliation’.’  The  Smart  Checkbook 
doesn’t  just  tell  you  if  you’re  out  of  balance — it 
finds  mistakes  and  corrects  them  on  the  spot. 

It  even  catches  bank  errors!- 

AND  print  checks,  of  course!  With  payee’s  name 
and  address! 

Advanced  features?  Split  transactions  and  assign 
the  amounts  to  the  categories  you  choose.  Track 
sales  taxes  and  much  more.  And  there’s  a  prac¬ 
tice  account  to  get  you  started. 

Yes:  unlimited  accounts,  combined  accounts, 
organized  accounts.  A  160k  disk,  holds  up  to 
2,000  transactions.  Bigger  disks— even  more. 

The  Smart  Checkbook  is  available  for  the  IBM-PC, 
PC-compatibles  and  most  CP/M,  CP/M-86  and 
MS-DOS  computers. 

Order  today.  $149  complete.  VISA  and  Master- 
Card  accepted.  Call  703-281-1621 

Soft  quest  Inc.  |”*f  fhe 

p-o.  box  3456  I  \j  Smart 

McLean,  VA  22103  |  !f 


book 


Trademarks: 

The  Smart  Checkbook— Softquest  Inc.  CP/M  and  CP/M-86— Digital  Research,  Inc.  PC-DOS— IBM  MS-DOS — Microsoft  Corp. 


for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  19B3 


Home 


Data*Easy  Software 
Foster  City,  CA 

Telephone  Directory.  This  directory  is  a  fast 
and  easy  way  to  keep  a  name  and  address 
book,  featuring  two  phone  numbers,  a  spe¬ 
cial  date,  and  a  brief  personal  note.  Data 
may  be  listed  or  displayed  on  the  screen.  $35. 

Data  Systems  International 
Harrisburg,  PA 

Data-Timer.  Organizes  and  sorts  all  pertinent 
information  from  a  personal  time-record 
book.  Can  be  used  to  enter  information  con¬ 
cerning  billing,  services  performed,  and  vari¬ 
ous  other  time-management  records. 
Information  can  be  summarized  at  the  end  of 
the  day  and  entered  on  the  computer  from 
the  diary.  $295. 

DEG  Software 
Houston,  TX 

InShape.  With  a  computerized  food  dictio¬ 
nary  and  automatic  calculation  of  aerobic  ex¬ 
ercise  points,  InShape  records  up  to  a  year  of 
information  on  daily  food  intake  and  exer¬ 
cise  performance.  Various  plotting  functions, 
including  sixty-day  and  fifty-two -week  sum¬ 
maries,  give  the  user  an  accurate  picture  of 
diet  and  exercise  patterns  over  time.  $95. 
PerFin.  A  personal  financial  records-keeping 
program,  PerFin  handles  your  checkbook 
and  up  to  forty  user-defined  accounts.  Perfin 
provides  an  easy-to-use  method  for  keeping 
track  of  income,  expenses,  and  credit  cards. 
Includes  budgeting,  editing,  and  reporting  fa¬ 
cilities.  $65. 

Dynacomp,  Inc. 

Rochester,  NY 

The  Family  Budget.  An  electronic  home  data 
records-keeping  program.  Records  expendi¬ 
tures,  both  cash  and  credit,  and  income  on  a 
daily  basis  for  the  period  of  one  calendar 
year.  $34.95. 

Personal  Finance  System.  Offers  the  user  one 
of  the  most  complete  financial  management 
packages  available,  allowing  the  individual 
or  small  businessman  complete  flexibility  in 
maintaining  all  aspects  of  financial  record¬ 
keeping.  Depending  on  configuration,  you 
will  be  able  to  store  from  300  to  2,000  trans¬ 
actions  on  each  disk.  $39.95. 

Ensign  Software 
Boise,  ID 

Checkbook  Accounting.  Provides  ledger  ca¬ 
pability  for  personal,  home,  or  small  busi¬ 
ness  finances  and  allows  charting  of 
accounts;  allocating  income  to  various  ac¬ 
counts;  obtaining  itemized  lists  by  date,  per¬ 
son,  and/or  account;  establishing 
budgets; and  observing  trends.  Prints  ledgers, 


financial  statements,  and  accounts  receiv¬ 
ables/payables.  $69.95. 

Bowling  League  Secretary.  Maintains  all 
bowling  league  statistics  and  memberships, 
computes  individual  handicaps  and  team 
standings,  and  prints  various  reports.  Two 
disk  drives.  Eighty-column  monitor,  serial  or 
parallel  printer  useful.  $99.95. 

Gourmet  Software 

San  Jose,  CA 

Pizza  Program.  Answers  the  question, 
'What  are  we  having  for  dinner?"  A  data- 
based  meal-planning  system  that  generates 
delicious  dinner  menus  and  shopping  lists,  al¬ 
lowing  you  to  modify  the  database  to  create 
menus  that  fit  tastes  and  budgets.  Details 
shopping  lists.  $34.50  plus  $2  shipping. 

International  Computers 

Mexico  Beach,  FL 

Mr  Lister.  Makes  mail  list  management  sim¬ 
ple.  Data  files  may  contain  2,000  entries  (disk 
space  allowing).  Mini- version  of  Mr  Lister 
2.0.  $50. 

Healthware 
Georgetown,  TX 

Master-Control  A  physician-designed,  com¬ 
prehensive  weight-management  program.  A 
database  of  approximately  3,000  foods,  in¬ 
cluding  brand  names  and  fast  foods,  and  one 
hundred  exercise  activities.  Identify  problem 
areas  and  work  to  correct  them.  $69.95,  plus 
$3  postage. 

Marathon  Software 
Clancy,  MT 

Running  Log.  Stores  and  analyzes  running 
data.  Up  to  thirteen  items  per  run,  including 
miles,  course,  time,  notes,  two  user-defined 
items,  and  so  on.  Two  runs  per  day.  Many 
graphs  and  tables. The  Running  Log  can  be 
tailored  for  individual  runners.  Two  disk 
drives,  color/graphics  adapter,  eighty-col¬ 
umn  display.  $39.95. 

Micro  Vision 
Commack,  NY 

Tax-Relief  I.  A  tax  package  for  individual 
use.  Supports  fifteen  of  the  most  commonly 
used  schedules  and  forms.  Uses  an  efficient 
and  convenient  method  of  data  entry,  edit¬ 
ing,  and  reviewing.  On-line  help  is  provided. 
Prints  signature-ready  returns.  $149. 

Monogram,  a  division  of  Tronix 
Publishing,  Inc. 

Los  Angeles,  CA 

Dollars  &  Sense.  A  personalized  financial  da¬ 
tabase  that  gives  the  user  fast  access  to  infor¬ 
mation.  $165. 

Norell  Data  Systems  Corp. 

Los  Angeles,  CA 

Computer  Chef.  Automated  recipe  file  and 


computerized  cookbook  turns  your  pc  into  a 
valuable  kitchen  assistant  that  saves  you 
time  and  money.  It  will  suggest  recipes  to  use 
up  your  leftovers.  Computer  Chef  calculates 
the  amount  of  each  ingredient  needed  to  in¬ 
crease  or  decrease  the  number  of  servings  a 
recipe  makes,  or,  given  a  specific  amount  of 
an  ingredient,  it  calculates  the  correct 
amount  for  the  remaining  ingredients  and  ad¬ 
justs  the  servings.  $49.95. 

N-Squared  Computing 

Silverton,  OR 

Nutritionist.  A  diet-analysis  program  that 
graphically  displays  analyses  in  weight  and 
percentage  of  RDA  for  nineteen  nutrients. 
Identifies  deficiencies  and  excesses  and  their 
sources.  Automatically  creates  food  lists  for 
special  requirement  diets.  Includes  all  utilities 
for  editing,  expanding,  and  changing  data¬ 
base  and  RDA  files.  $145. 

Nutritionist  II.  An  interactive  graphics  diet- 
analysis  program  that  analyzes  foods,  meals, 
recipes,  and  diets  in  weight  and  percentage  of 
RDA  for  thirty-six  nutritive  components  in¬ 
cluding  trace  elements  and  amino  acid  break¬ 
down.  Identifies  sources  of  deficiencies  and 
excesses  and  identifies  foods  meeting  user- 
specified  requirements.  $295. 

Omega  Software,  Inc. 

Chicago,  IL 

Tax  Templates.  VisiCalc  templates  that  will 
handle  most  of  the  tax  schedules  used  in  con¬ 
junction  with  the  federal  1040  forms.  A  copy 
of  Laser's  Your  Income  Tax  is  included.  This 
package  is  designed  for  use  with  versions  of 
VisiCalc  providing  Data  Interchange  Format 
(DIF)  and  Boolean  Logic  @IF  functions.  The 
Advanced  Version  of  VisiCalc  for  the  pc  may 
be  used.  $89.95. 

Pacific  Data  Systems,  Inc. 

Culver  City,  CA 

MoneyTrack.  Professional-level  accounting 
system  for  people  with  substantial  financial 
activities.  Keeps  track  of  all  transactions.  In¬ 
cludes  multiple  distributions,  for  example, 
principal  and  interest.  Features  efficient  bank 
statement  reconciliation,  check  printing  with 
choice  of  formats.  No  computer  experience 
needed.  $450. 

Realty  Software 
Redondo  Beach,  CA 
Home  Purchase .  Aid  to  home  buyers  and 
sellers  in  making  knowledgeable  decisions 
when  buying  and  comparing  properties.  Stu¬ 
dies  may  be  made  on  several  potential 
homes,  allowing  very  thorough  financial 
comparison  including  best  means  of  financ¬ 
ing.  $50. 

Sapana  Micro  Software 
Pittsburg,  KS 

Write  a  Letter.  A  menu-driven  program  to 


190 


softcilk 


Home 


create  simple  letters  and  print  them.  Program 
features  include  the  ability  to  create  a  letter, 
edit/display  the  letter,  write  a  letter  to  disk, 
delete  a  letter  from  disk,  display  files  on  disk, 
reformat  the  text,  $29.95, 

Expense- Track  I.  A  menu-driven  program  to 
keep  track  of  expenses  and  prepare  useful  re¬ 
ports.  Program  features  include  the  ability  to 
enter  expenses,  list  expenses,  list  expenses 
categorically,  edit  expenses,  compact  the  file, 
open  /close  /create  file,  and  list  files.  $49,95. 
House/io/d  Inventory  Track  1.  A  menu- 
driven  program  to  keep  track  of  household 
items  (item  name,  comment,  date  purchased, 
purchase  value,  current  value,  depreciation/ 
appreciation,  category  codes,  and  so  on), 
print,  edit,  and  update  current  values.  Can 
also  be  used  as  a  simple  database  manage¬ 
ment  program.  $49.95, 

S-C  Software  Corporation 
Dallas,  TX 

Classical  Music.  Bobby  Deen  has  transcribed 
the  "William  Tell  Overture"  by  Rossini  and 
Tchaikovsky's  "Nutcracker  Suite"  for  six 
voices.  Compatible  with  the  ALF  synthesizer, 
or  the  Applied  Engineering  synthesizer.  $15. 

Sundex  Software 

Boulder,  CO 

Personal  Payables.  Takes  care  of  all  bill  pay¬ 
ing  and  keeps  personal  and  family  bookkeep¬ 
ing  well  organized  and  up-to-date.  Helps  at 
tax  time  too.  Prints  on  personal  and  continu¬ 
ous-form  checks.  Handles  recurring  pay¬ 
ments  and  alerts  you  to  those  coming  due. 
Tracks  up  to  ten  accounts,  with  flexible  re¬ 
porting  by  date,  payee,  tax,  and  so  on, 
$49,95. 

Certified  Personal  Accountant .  Organizes, 
analyzes,  and  manages  personal  finances. 
Easy  to  learn  and  use  with  on-line  help  and 
tutorial.  Use  it  for  tax  planning,  budgeting, 
bill  paying  (with  checkwriting),  and  stocks, 
SI  49  95, 

CPL  A  personal  portfolio  manager.  Calcu¬ 
lates  long  and  short  realized  and  unrealized 
gains;  prints  104GB  and  1040D  reports;  lets 
you  watch  stocks  you  don  t  own;  handles 
splits,  options,  dividends,  commissions,  and 
taxes;  and  lets  you  define  spreadsheetlike 
analyses.  5149.95. 

Systech,  Inc* 

Bartlesville,  OK 

Money  Planner.  Helps  you  plan  financial 
affairs:  net  worth  planning  and  reporting; 
household  budgeting;  thirteen  financial  plan¬ 
ning  aids  in  lending,  borrowing,  and  invest¬ 
ing,  A  running  balance  adder  balances 
checkbooks  or  can  be  used  as  a  calculator 
with  item  description.  £39. 


Educational  Software  That  Works 


2  disks  $49.95 


2  disks  $69.95 


We  believe  that  children  have  an  innate 
curiosity  ...  a  natural  desire  to  learn,  to 
discover,  to  understand.  Our  software  was 
designed  with  this  in  mind.  Even 
traditionally  tedious  subjects  like  math, 
reading,  and  vocabulary  building  are  easily 
mastered.  Why?  Because  our  software 
makes  children  want  to  learn.  And  when 
they  want  to  learn,  the  results  are 
FANTASTIC! 

We  know  our  software  WORKS  because  we 
developed  and  tested  it  in  the  classroom. 
Let  our  software  WORK  for  your  children 
too! 


For  the  Apple  and  IBM  PC.* 


Ask  your  dealer. 


davidsoi^Sssociates 


6069  Groveoak  Place  #12 
Rancho  Palos  Verdes,  CA  90274 


MasterCard  and  Visa  cardholders  may  call  collect  to  order: 

(213)  373-9473 

‘Apple  and  IBM  are  registered  trademarks  of  Apple  Computer,  tnc.  and 
International  Business  Machines,  Corp. 


for  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


191 


Home 


Record  Keeper.  Keeps  track  of  personal, 
financial,  and  tax  records.  Fast  on-line  up¬ 
date  and  inquiry,  and  printed  reports,  $39 
EZ  Converter  Solves  almost  any  common 
conversion  problems.  Converts  from  one 
unit  of  measurement  to  another  in  ILS.  sys¬ 
tem  or  from  English  to  metric  system  and 
vice  versa.  Covers  distance,  area,  volume, 
weight,  temperature,  fraction,  decimal,  and 
so  on.  $29. 

PC  Wizards.  Contains  five  programs  for  the 
family;  Math  Tutor  helps  improve  children's 
math  skills  (age  6-16).  EZ  Converter  saves 
you  time  in  dealing  with  measurements  (Eng¬ 
lish  and  metric).  Mail  Master  stores,  updates 
mail  list,  and  prints  labels.  Money  Planner 
organizes  and  controls  money  matters,  jRer^ 
ord  Keeper  keeps  track  of  personal,  finan¬ 
cial  records.  All  five  for  $75. 

Mad  Master.  Provides  retrieval  and  update  of 
personal  or  business  name  directory.  Add, 
change,  delete,  display,  and  print  names  with 
tfieir  relevant  information.  Scan  or  print 
neatly  designed  mailing  labels  with  full  con¬ 
trol  of  label  size  and  type  (1,2,3,  or  4  up)  and 


name  selection  (by  Zip  Code,  range,  or 
name).  $39. 

Systematics 
West  Bloomfield,  MI 
Golf  Cap.  Calculates  USGA  type  handicaps. 
Can  be  used  for  leagues.  Stores  twenty  scores 
(par  and  date)  per  golfer,  prints  lists  alpha¬ 
betically  or  by  handicap.  Up  to  250  golfers 
per  single-sided  disk.  Requires  two  drives, 
$49.95. 

1040  Software,  Inc. 

New  Hyde  Park,  NY 
Plan  1040 ,  An  income  tax  planner  that  runs 
multiple  tax  strategies.  Covers  both  1983  and 
1984  tax  years.  $150. 

Virtual  Combinatics 
Rockport,  MA 

Micro  Cookbook ,  A  computerized  cook¬ 
book  and  recipe  management  system  with 
over  150  international  recipes  and  cook- 
book-type  reference  data ,  Enter,  modify,  and 
remove  recipes,  even  create  your  own  cook¬ 
book  disks.  Search  by  recipe  name,  ingredi¬ 
ent^),  and/or  classifications.  Produce  a 
shopping  list  and  adjust  recipes  for  serving 
size.  $40. 


John  Wiley  &  Sons,  Inc. 

New  York,  NY 

Personal  Investment  Analysis  (IBM  pc  Ver¬ 
sion).  A  personal  financial  planning  program 
that  analyzes  investment  options.  Lets  users 
assess  the  relative  profitability  of  tax-free 
versus  taxable  securities,  analyze  mortgage 
terms,  weigh  convertible  bonds,  and  plan  a 
retirement  income  program.  $60. 

Investment  Tax  Analyst  (IBM  pc  Version )  by 
Advanced  Investment  Strategies ,  A  VisiCak 
template  to  help  individual  investors  or 
financial  professionals  weigh  the  tax  effects 
of  potential  investments.  Incorporating  all 
current  federal  tax  laws  and  allowing  for 
state  tax  input,  it  calculates  tax  Liabilities, 
credits,  and  savings  expectable  from  any  in¬ 
vestments)  for  up  to  six  years  and  compares 
net  present  value,  £150. 

Xor  Corp, 

Minnetonka,  MN 

Manage  your  time  with  TTiotfi,  your  money 
with  Blu  Chip  portfolio  manager.  Program 
with  C  Tools.  Explore  counterintelligence  as 
Agent  2.0,  match  strategy  with  Edof  go  up 
against  Sf.  Hippolyte's  W&IL  Priced  from 
£39.95  to  $99.95. 


Publications 


Addison-Wesley  Publishing  Co. 
Reading,  MA 

Pascal  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computet ;  by 
Ted  G.  Lewis.  The  more  than  half  a  million 
Personal  Computer  owners  now  have  a 
source  for  discovering  the  most  effective 
ways  to  program  in  Pascal.  The  author  de¬ 
tails  how  to  write  effective  programs  in  both 
IBM  Pascal  and  UCSD  Pascal,  explaining  the 


advantages  of  using  one  system  or  the  other 
for  specific  programming  problems.  Pascal 
for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  is  for  Pascal 
programmers  familiar  with  other  machines 
who  want  to  transfer  those  skills  to  the  pc 
and  for  pc  users  who  want  to  learn  Pascal. 
$15.95, 

A  Guide  to  the  Best  Business  Software  for  the 
IBM  PC ,  by  Richard  C.  Dorf.  A  comprehen¬ 


sive  guide  to  the  best  business  software  pack¬ 
ages  available  for  the  pc.  Dr.  Dorf  covers 
software  for  all  areas  of  business  comput¬ 
ing-including  accounting,  spreadsheets, 
time  management,  personal  investment,  da¬ 
tabase  management,  communications, 
graphics,  and  the  new  systems  that  combine 
several  different  applications  into  an  inte¬ 
grated  package.  $12.95. 


m 


soft Olk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  2983 


Don't  Spend  Hours  Codinq 
\bur  Input  Screens... 

Leave  It  To 
KEYDISK" 


KEYDISK  uses  a  screen  design  tike 
this ... 


A.  You  design  your  data  screens  with  a  cus¬ 
tomized  full-screen  editor. 

B.  KEYDISK  generates  fully-operational 
BASIC  code  from  your  screen  designs.  You 
don’t  do  any  programming. 


KEYDISK  eliminates  the  hours  of  coding 
time  necessary  to  customize  data  display 
screens.  It  is  an  excellent  programmer  pro¬ 
ductivity  tool  that  can  be  used  for  system 
prototyping  as  well  as  for  coding  the  final 
product. 

KEYDISK  does  not  produce  a  “black  box” 
that  only  the  computer  can  understand;  it 
generates  BASIC  source  code.  Use  it  as  an 
educational  tool:  it  shows  you  how  to  con¬ 
trol  the  keyboard  and  the  cursor.  KEYDISK 
allows  you  to  chain  up  to  ten  screens  during 
data  input.  The  user  manual  describes  in 
detail  ways  to  further  customize  the  result¬ 
ing  code,  should  you  wish  to  protect  fields, 
initialize  fields,  etc. 

KEYDISK  is  supplied  on  diskette  with  a  de¬ 
tailed  user  manual  and  examples.  The  soft¬ 
ware  requires  an  IBM-PC  or  compatible  ma¬ 
chine,  color  or  monochrome  screen,  at  least 
one  disk  drive,  128K  of  RAM  and  MS-DOS. 


C.  The  resulting  code  may  be  incorporated  in 
your  systems  to  provide  full-screen  data 
input,  review  and  storage  features. 


to  generate  a  HAS/C  program  Lufueft 
RLWs  like  this . 


Ultimately,  it’s  up  to  yow  you  can  spend  hours 
programming  your  input  screens  ...  or  you  can 
leave  it  to  KEYDISK. 


[BM-PC  is  a  registered 
trademark  of  IBM  Corporation, 
MS-DOS  is  a  registered! 
trademark  of  Microsoft, 


KEYDISK  is  available  for  SlGQ  from 

ft  ACORN  SOFTWARE 

9111  Cadawac 
Houston,  Texas  77074 
(713)  774-6108 


Publications 


The  Addison-Wesley  Book  of  IBM  Software 
1984 ,  edited  by  Robert  P.  Wells,  Sandra  Ro- 
chowansky,  and  Michael  Mellin.  Lists  and 
evaluates  over  300  software  packages  de¬ 
signed  for  the  pc.  Along  with  a  detailed  de¬ 
scription,  each  program  is  given  a  letter 
grade  (A  through  F)  so  that  consumers  can 
decide  quickly  whether  the  software  pro¬ 
gram  is  right  for  them  before  they  buy  it. 
$19.95. 

And/Or  Press 
Berkeley,  CA 

The  IBM  Personal  Computer  Handbook,  ed¬ 
ited  by  Dzinter  E.  Dravnieks,  et  al.  Gives  you 
the  background  and  information  you  need  to 
make  the  most  intelligent  hardware  and  soft¬ 
ware  decisions  and  boost  your  productivity. 
Features  chapters  on  spreadsheets,  word 
processing,  databases,  telecommunications 
and  networking,  business,  and  games.  In¬ 
cluded  are  chapter  glossaries,  annotated  bib¬ 
liography,  and  a  comprehensive  resource 
directory.  $19.95. 

Architecture  Technology  Corp. 

Minneapolis,  MN 

PC  Perspectives.  A  newsletter  for  profes¬ 
sional  and  business  users  of  the  IBM  Personal 
Computer.  Issued  monthly,  PC  Perspectives 
covers  all  the  latest  happenings  in  the  pc  and 
pc-compatible  world.  Also  included  are 
short  feature  articles  to  keep  users  abreast  of 
the  latest  technology  as  it  affects  the  pc.  Is¬ 
sued  monthly,  subscription  rates  are  $195  per 
year.  United  States;  $245  per  year,  foreign. 

Black  Box  Corp. 

Pittsburgh,  PA 

The  Black  Box  Catalog.  A  mail-order  cata¬ 
logue  of  over  300  data  communication  de¬ 
vices  and  accessories.  Products  range  from 
cables  and  switches  to  protocol  converters 
and  statistical  multiplexors.  The  catalogue  is 
free. 

The  Book  Co. 

Los  Angeles,  CA 

The  Book  of  IBM  Software  1984.  Offers  a 
comprehensive  critical  analysis  of  each  pro¬ 
gram.  Each  evaluation  is  written  by  an  expert 
in  his  or  her  field — business,  education,  com¬ 
munications,  or  professions  such  as  law  or 
medicine.  $19.95. 

Robert  J.  Brady  Co. 

Bowie,  MD 

Handbook  of  Basic  for  the  IBM  PC 
(Schneider).  The  only  currently  existing 
manual  for  the  pc  designed  with  the  beginner 
in  mind.  Organized  by  Basic  programming 
statements,  the  user  can  go  directly  to  desired 


information  without  confusion  or  delay 
while  programming.  This  guide  is  essentially 
a  laymans  rewrite  of  the  Basic  Reference 
Manual  supplied  with  the  pc.  This  book  pre¬ 
supposes  no  knowledge  of  Basic  and  explains 
all  materials  supplied  in  the  manual.  $15.95. 
Games ,  Graphics ,  and  Sound  for  the  IBM  PC 
( Strickland ,  Rockwell,  and  Bowyer).  Leam- 
by-doing  guide  for  the  beginner  teaches  how 
to  program  the  pc  for  graphics  and  sound. 
Instructions  for  programming  are  included  in 
Basic,  Pascal,  and  Fortran  in  many  cases.  Ex¬ 
plains  how  to  integrate  sound  and  graphics 
into  animation  with  the  help  of  more  than 
seventy  working  examples.  Also  includes  a 
step-by-step  example  of  the  creation  of  a  sim¬ 
ple  video  game.  Software  package  kits  avail¬ 
able.  Book,  $18.95.  Book/disk,  $64.95. 
DOS  disk,  $40.  p-System  disk,  $30. 

Pascal  Programming  for  the  IBM-PC  (Bow¬ 
yer  and  Tomboulian).  Brings  the  pc  and  Pas¬ 
cal  programming  together.  Emphasizes 
graphics  and  sound  applications.  Book, 
$17.95.  Book/ disk,  $44.95.  Disk,  $30. 

IBM  Personal  Computer :  An  Introduction  to 
Programming  and  Applications  (Goldstein 
and  Goldstein).  Written  in  the  same  easy-to- 
read,  self-study  format  as  the  first  edition, 
this  new  book  includes  two  new  chapters  on 
Basic  programming.  These  new  chapters  em¬ 
phasize  the  importance  of  structuring  and 
planning  programs  as  well  as  important  in¬ 
formation  on  debugging  programs.  The 
chapter  on  files  includes  an  enlarged  section 
on  random-access  files.  $18.95. 

8087  Applications  and  Programming  for  the 
IBM  PC  and  Other  Personal  Computers 
(Startz).  A  clearly  stated  and  comprehensive 
explanation  of  the  number-crunching  8087 
microprocessor.  Beginning  with  a  nontechni¬ 
cal  introduction,  the  book  evolves  into  a  de¬ 
tailed  technical  explanation  of  the  8087 
microprocessor.  Sections  for  both  the  techni¬ 
cal  and  nontechnical  user.  $19.95. 

Wm.  C.  Brown  Co. 

Publishers 
Dubuque,  IA 

The  IBM  Personal  Computer  Executive  Li¬ 
brary.  Contains  over  800  pages  of  step-by- 
step  instructions  within  four  books:  User's 
Guide  with  Applications ,  Data  and  File  Man¬ 
agement,  Introduction  to  Graphics,  and 
Techniques  of  Basic.  Over  200  ready-to-run 
programs  cover  mailing  lists,  games,  file  man¬ 
agement,  and  graphics.  $50.85. 

Chilton  Book  Co. 

Radnor,  PA 

A  Critics  Guide  to  Software  for  the  IBM-PC 
and  PC-Compatible  Computers ,  by  Phillip  I. 
Good.  Evaluates  the  most  popular  spread¬ 
sheet,  word  processing,  data  management, 
graphic  packages.  For  professionals  in  busi¬ 
ness,  agriculture,  law,  and  health.  $12.95. 


Concept  Group,  Inc. 

El  Paso,  TX 

Masterspec2  Disk  Library  Service.  Available 
to  current  subscribers  with  PSAE  division 
AIA  Service  Corporation.  Masterspec2 
A/S/C  and  M/E  text  on  5  1/4-in  disks  for 
microcomputers  in  Basic  and  Short  language 
versions.  Text  includes  "notes  to  specifier" 
(nonprinting)  in  A/S/C  library.  Requires 
WordStar  (CP/M).  First  year,  $695.  Renewal 
fee,  $250. 

Digit  Magazine 
San  Francisco,  CA 

Digit.  A  magazine  designed  for  young  people 
aged  10  to  16  and  their  families  who  are  inter¬ 
ested  in  computers  and  high  technology.  Sin¬ 
gle  copy  price,  $1.95.  Six  issues,  $8.95. 

dilithium  Press 
Beaverton,  OR 

More  Than  32  Basic  Programs  for  the  IBM 
PC.  Full  of  programs  with  practical  applica¬ 
tions,  educational  uses,  games,  and  graphics. 
Each  of  the  thirty-seven  chapters  fully  docu¬ 
ments  a  different  bug-free  program.  And  if 
you  have  a  good  working  knowledge  of  Ba¬ 
sic,  you  can  devise  and  implement  your  own 
program  changes.  Book /software  package, 
$34.95. 

Electronic  Courseware  Systems,  Inc. 
Champaign,  IL 

A  Planning  Guide  to  Successful  Computer 
Instruction.  For  individuals  interested  in  the 
educational  applications  of  computers.  In¬ 
cludes  an  introduction  to  computer  hard¬ 
ware,  selection  criteria  for  computer 
hardware,  selection  and  evaluation  criteria 
for  courseware,  computer  instruction  site  de¬ 
velopment,  computer  instruction  site  man¬ 
agement,  sources,  and  software  for 
educational  use.  Eighty-one-page  three-ring 
binder.  $19.95. 

Ellis  Computing,  Inc. 

San  Francisco,  CA 

Nevada  Cobol  Applications  Book.  Contains 
seven  Cobol  programs  designed  to  cover 
budget,  personal  finance,  labels,  and  pre- 
Cobol.  The  seven ty-three- page  book  con¬ 
tains  the  complete  Cobol  source  code  in  addi¬ 
tion  to  the  superior  user  documentation. 
$9.95. 

Elsevier  Science  Publishing  Co. 

New  York,  NY 

The  Software  Catalog.  Produced  from  The 
International  Software  Database.  A  quar¬ 
terly  publication  that  gives  complete  details 
on  over  50,000  software  packages.  Program 
details  include  vendor  information,  full  pro¬ 
gram  details,  machine  compatibilities,  price, 
warranty  information,  source  code,  and  up¬ 
date  availability.  The  Software  Catalog  is 


194 


softaik 


V  ^  ~ *  r 

r  *3/  ;  /${ 


PUBLICATIO 


N  S 


available  in  two  versions:  microcomputers 
$69/single  copy,  $142.50  per  year;  and  mini¬ 
computers  $95 /single  copy  $191.50  per  year. 


Hayden  Book  Co.,  Inc. 

Hasbrouck  Heights,  NJ 
IBM  Basic  From  the  Ground  Up.  A  book  that 
serves  as  a  complete  guide  to  the  Basic  lan¬ 
guage  for  the  IBM  personal  computer. 
$15.95. 


Hy-tek 
Dayton,  MD 

Selling  Your  Software — The  Personal  Com - 
puterist's  Guide  to  Fame  and  Fortune - 
.  .  Maybe!  A  guide  of  what  to  do  and  what 
not  to  do  in  trying  to  sell  that  program  you 
have  labored  over  for  so  long.  Written  by  the 
staff  of  Hy-Tek's  software  division.  $9.95. 
The  Apple/IBM  PC  Dictionary.  Allows  the 
pc  (or  compatible)  user  to  easily  convert  all 
those  published  Apple  programs  for  use  on 
the  pc  (or  compatible)  or  vice-versa.  Along 
with  the  conversion  information  is  a  short 
description  of  the  function  of  each  com¬ 
mand.  For  the  beginner  as  well  as  the  ad¬ 
vanced  computerist.  Available  early  1984. 
Under  $25. 


I.B.  Magazette 
Shreveport,  LA 

I.B.  Magazette.  Build  your  program  library, 
sharpen  your  skills,  and  have  fun  while  ex¬ 
panding  the  usefulness  of  your  pc.  Each  bi¬ 
monthly  disk  contains  detailed  step-through 
tutorials,  programs,  utilities,  hints,  reader- 
contributed  material,  even  music  and  games. 
Always  includes  a  major  program  or  a  dem¬ 
onstration  version  of  commercially  available 
software.  Return  the  original  along  with 
your  check  for  the  next  issue  in  the  provided 
postage-paid  mailer.  $15. 


Infopro,  Inc. 

Bensalem,  PA 

The  Directory  of  Independent  PC  Hardware 
and  Software.  A  comprehensive  directory  of 
products  that  run  on  the  IBM  PC.  Provides 
150  pages  of  software  and  hardware  descrip¬ 
tions  and  reviews  in  a  loose-leaf  binder,  al¬ 
lowing  package-to-package  comparisons. 
$29.95. 


Intercalc 

Scarsdale,  NY 

Spreadsheet.  A  monthly  newsletter 
published  by  Intercalc,  an  international  Visi- 
Calc  users'  group  with  over  2,000  members. 
Spreadsheet  offers  new  templates,  tips,  and 
hints  on  how  to  get  more  out  of  VisiCalc,  and 
reviews  other  products.  $42  per  year. 


Longman  Financial  Services 
Publishing 

Chicago,  IL 

The  Buyer's  Guide  to  Financial  Services  Soft¬ 
ware.  A  650-page  directory  of  microcompu¬ 
ter  software  programs  for  the  financial 
services  industry.  Helps  the  reader  to  locate 
and  compare  available  software  programs. 
Includes  information  on  banking;  financial 
planning  and  taxes;  real  estate;  and  stocks, 
bonds,  and  commodities  software  programs. 
$100. 


Mentat 

Brooklyn,  NY 

Mentat.  An  amateur  magazine.  Contributors 
write  articles  about  their  interests  in  comput¬ 
ers  and  computing.  Mentat  is  free;  contribu¬ 
tors  only  pay  postage  and  for  duplicating 
their  contributions. 


MENTOR  ...  the  magazine  on  disk 

San  Francisco,  CA 

MENTOR.  Magazine  on  disk  features  arti¬ 
cles  and  programs  designed  to  help  you  cope 
with  the  microcomputer  revolution.  There's 
no  need  to  type  in  programs,  since  they  are 
already  on  disk.  $44.95  for  six  issues  (one 
year),  or  $14.95  for  two  trial  issues. 


Menu,  The  International  Software 
Database 

Ft.  Collins,  CO 

Menu  produces  Software  Reports  for  cus¬ 
tomers  with  specific  software  questions.  A 
customized  search  of  the  International  Soft¬ 
ware  Database  to  find  software  to  fill  the 
customer's  needs  can  be  performed  in  sec¬ 
onds  over  the  telephone.  The  ISD  contains 
complete  details  on  over  50,000  software 
packages.  Fees  for  a  Software  Report  are  $25 
for  the  first  ten  programs,  $1  per  program  up 
to  50/  and  .50  per  program  thereafter. 


Microcomputer  Applications 
Fairfield,  CA 

High-Tech  Consulting.  Describes  essential  in¬ 
formation  for  anyone  considering  a  career  as 
a  computer  consultant.  $18.95. 


Microware,  Inc. 

Kingston,  MA 

87/88  Guide.  A  handbook  on  writing  code 
for  the  8087  and  8088  using  the  IBM  assem¬ 
bler.  Full  of  examples  and  code.  $30. 


Mini  Magic  Co. 
West  Hartford,  CT 


Basic  Reference  Cards.  Descriptions  of  Basic 
commands,  functions  and  statements.  $25. 


Business  Managers, 
If  you  have  to 


9 


when 


»•  +  *  V 

_  decisions,  you  need  Boaomune  • 

maiding  business  tnanageme 

n  When  you  are  preparing  a  budget, 

arranging  for  a  loan,  planning  production, 
forecasting  cash  flow  or  other  business 
management  functions,  you  are  going  to 
have  questions.  Decisions  involving 

La  look  at  long-range  information  are 
difficult.  Variables  affect  the  entire 
financial  picture.  With  Bottomline  V,  just 
enter  your  data  and  a  logically  inte¬ 
grated  financial  analysis  will  result. 

Bottomline  V  is  a  ready-to-use  man¬ 
agement  tool  that  allows  you  to  integrate 
income  statements,  balance  sheets, 
sources  and  uses  of  cash,  or  other  perti¬ 
nent  data  for  instant  analysis. 


BoMomUne? 


A  56.000  plus  value  retailing  for  5295,00. 
Ask  your  local  dealer  for  a  demo  today. 

Or  call  direct:  Strategic  Software  Systems, 
Inc.,  1300  Dove  Street,  Suite  200.  Newport 
Beach,  CA  92660.  Telephone  {714}  476-2842. 


For  use  with  the  following  personal 
computer  spreadsheets:  Lotus  1-2-3™ 
MULTIPLAN,™  SuperCalc™  and 
VisiCalc™  on  the  IBM™PC.  VisiCalc  on 
the  Apple  PCs,  SuperCalc  on  most 
CP/M™  systems  and  MULTI  PLAN  on 
most  MS-DOS  systems. 


1983 


V  195 


rr.’M  ■ 
'i*? . -  *■ 


“The  best  accounting 
system  for  the  IBM  PC 
that  I’ve  seen.  ” 

Boston  Microcomputing  Consultant 


That's  what  we’re  hearing  these  days  from 
industry  experts  and  business  users  alike. 

No  wonder.  Our  ACCOUNTMASTER  8/16™ 
System  has  been  perfected  over  the  last  seven 
years  in  a  complete  range  of  applications,  and 
it’s  already  running  on  8,000  microcomputers 
from  coast  to  coast. 

The  ACCOUNTMASTER  8/16  System  has  a 
combination  of  features  you  won’t  find  in  any 
other  microcomputer  accounting  software. 

It  has  the  flexibility  to  adapt  to  your  procedures, 
the  capacity  to  accommodate  a  growing  busi¬ 
ness,  and  the  modularity  to  let  you  build  the 
coordinated  general  accounting  system  you 
really  need,  function  by  function. 

What’s  more,  the  ACCOUNTMASTER  8/16 
System  runs  not  just  on  the  IBM  PC  but  on  any 
8  or  16-bit  microcomputer  that  uses  CP/M™, 
CP/M-86™,  MP/M™,  MP/M-86™,  or  MS-DOS™. 
You’re  not  limited  to  one  brand  of  hardware. 

If  you’d  like  to  read  all  about  the  best 
price/performance  accounting  software  on  the 
microcomputing  market,  just  drop  us  a  line  or 
give  us  a  call  toll-free  at  800-547-SBSG  (except 
in  Mass.) 

The  Can-Do  People  in  Microcomputing 

SMALL  BUSINESS 
SYSTEMS  GROUP 

6  Carlisle  Road  *  westford,  MA  018B6  •  617-692-3800 

User-proven  microcomputer  software  and  systems  for 
accounting ,  communications ,  electronic  mail  and  more 

Trademarks:  IBM  PC,  International  Business  Machines:  ACCOUNTMASTER  3/18 
S8SG  CP/M.  CP/M-86,  MP/M,  M P/M  86,  Digital  Research:  MS-DOS.  Microsoft 


Publications 


Osborne/McGraw-Hiil 
Berkeley,  CA 

IBM  PC  DiskGuide ,  This  quick- re  fere  nee 
booklet  summarizes  all  statements,  com¬ 
mands,  and  keywords  applicable  to  DOS, 
Edlin,  and  Basic.  Organized  by  function, 
with  tables,  charts,  and  diagrams  for  addi¬ 
tional  clarity.  $8.95. 

Graphics  Primer  for  the  IBM  PC.  Learn  to 
use  your  systems  graphics  commands  to 
produce  useful  color  graphics  for  business, 
engineering,  education,  and  entertainment 
applications.  $21.95. 

The  Osborne/ McGraw-Hill  Home  Com¬ 
puter  Software  Guide  A  comprehensive  ref¬ 
erence  guide  to  every  major  home  computer 
software  package.  Covers  persona!  finance, 
investment,  education,  word  processing,  and 
games.  $11 ,95. 

54  VisiCalc  Models:  Fimnce-Stalistics-Math- 
ematics.  Manage  investments,  loans,  taxes, 
and  solve  over  thirty  different  statistical  and 
mathematical  problems  with  this  collection 
of  ready-to-use  VisiCalc  programs.  Just  key 
them  directly  into  your  computer.  $15.95. 
Your  IBM  PC  Made  Easy.  This  basic  operat¬ 
ing  guide  covers  all  the  fundamentals  of  the 
computer  system.  Contains  step-by-step  run¬ 
ning  instructions,  software  use  and  care, 
trouble-shooting  tips  and  a  guide  to  IBM  sup¬ 
plies,  services,  and  user  groups.  $12.95. 

Your  IBM  PC:  /l  Guide  to  the  IBM  PC  ( DOS 
2.0)  and  XT.  Everything  you  need  to  know  to 
set  up  and  operate  your  pc  or  XT,  There  are 
tutorials  in  Basic  programming  as  well  as  in¬ 
structions  for  using  color  graphics  and 
sound.  $17.95. 

PC  Clearing  House 
Fairfax,  VA 

Directory  of  over  21,000  micro  software 
packages  for  business  programming,  educa¬ 
tion,  home,  and  specialized  vertical  markets 
for  IBM,  Apple,  and  other  micros.  $39.95, 

PC-Demo 
San  Francisco,  CA 

PC-Demo.  Software  demo  programs  of  the 
latest  pc  software.  Each  month,  subscribers 
receive  a  single-sided  disk  filled  with  three  to 
five  software  demos,  a  catalog  of  demos  that 
can  be  ordered  individually,  and  a  coupon 
good  for  $6  off  any  software  purchase  from 
SOCTSoftware*  $18  for  three  issues. 

Personal  Computer  Journal 
Spokane,  WA 

Personal  Computer  Journal.  A  disk-based 
magazine  with  games,  utilities,  and  filing  sys¬ 
tems.  Each  issue  has  eight  documented, 
ready-to-use  programs  as  well  as  quick-refer¬ 
ence  cards  and  inserts  for  IBM's  manuals. 


softalk 


Publications 


Send  two  blank  disks  and  a  stamped  enve¬ 
lope  for  a  copy  of  issue  1;  a  copy  of  the  free 
issue  will  be  enclosed.  $45  per  year  for  320K 
drives;  for  160K  add  $1.50  per  issue  for  two- 
disk  set. 

Prentice-Hall,  Inc. 

Englewood  Cliffs,  NJ 
Graphics  For  the  IBM  Personal  Computer, 
by  Donald  Hearn  and  M.  Pauline  Baker.  Pro¬ 
vides  a  basic  but  complete  introduction  to  the 
concepts  and  techniques  of  computer  graph¬ 
ics  and  details  the  graphics  applications  capa¬ 
bilities  of  the  pc.  $18.95. 

Programming  for  the  IBM  Personal  Com¬ 
puter,  by  David  J.  Bradley.  This  how-to  tuto¬ 
rial  begins  with  details  of  the  pc's  operation, 
teaches  how  to  write  assembly  language  pro¬ 
grams,  and  shows  how  to  use  them  to  link  up 
with  another  program  or  system.  $24.95. 
Animation,  Games,  and  Sound  for  the  IBM 
Personal  Computer,  by  Tony  Fabbri.  Learn 
Basic  statements  and  programming  while 
creating  "arcade"  games  on  the  pc.  Requires 
no  prior  knowledge  of  computers  or  pro¬ 
gramming  and  no  special  graphics  equipment 
(just  a  32K  memory  and  at  least  one  disk 
drive).  $16.95. 

Conversion  Handbook  of  BASIC,  by  J.  Mel 
Harris  and  Michael  L.  Scofield.  $14.95. 
BASIC  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer,  by 
D.  Heiserman.  $15.95. 

Programmed  Press 
Elmont,  NY 

Computer-Assisted  Investment  Handbook 
(Bookbinder),  Fifty  programs:  stocks, 
bonds,  options,  futures,  foreign  exchange, 
and  statistical  package.  $19.95. 

QED  Information  Sciences,  Inc. 

Wellesley,  MA 

Microcomputer  Software  Selection  Guide. 
Down-to-earth  tutorial  shows  managers 
what  to  look  for  in  microcomputer  software 
and  how  to  avoid  common  pitfalls  in  soft¬ 
ware  selection.  $14.95. 

Learning  to  Use  the  IBM  Personal  Computer. 
This  guide  is  a  hands-on  tutorial  for  the  first¬ 
time  user.  Solve  business  problems  without 
wading  through  reams  of  documentation. 
$14.95. 

Reston  Publishing  Co. 

Reston,  VA 

Better  BASIC  for  the  IBM  PC,  by  J.N.P. 
Hume  and  R.  C.  Holt.  A  complete  guide  to 
programming  in  Basic  for  the  pc.  Uses  exten¬ 
sions  to  Basic  provided  only  on  the  pc  to 
write  structured  programs.  An  excellent 
grounding  for  further  study  in  computer  sci¬ 
ence  or  a  step-by-step  guide  for  self-learning. 
Nonmathematical  in  orientation.  $16.95. 


The  DIF  Files,  by  Donald  H.  Beil.  This  book 
looks  at  the  wide  variety  of  potentially  unas¬ 
sociated  software  currently  available.  It 
offers  extended  case  studies  that  demonstrate 
data  exchange  between  some  of  the  most 
popular  of  those  software  products.  This 
book  contains  information  for  anyone  who 
uses  one  of  the  products  that  support  DIF  and 
who  wants  to  interchange  data  with  other 
products  that  support  DIF.  Paper,  $15.95. 
Cloth,  $19.95. 

The  VisiCalc  Book:  IBM  Edition,  Donald  H. 
Beil.  Hundreds  of  pc  users  and  businesses 
have  discovered  the  wide  range  of  usps  for 
VisiCalc.  This  book  describes  model  build¬ 
ing,  entering  data,  and  explores  the  "what  if" 
questions  about  profit/loss  projections,  pric¬ 
ing/costing  estimates,  or  any  other  aspects  of 
running  a  business.  Many  practice  problems 
are  included.  Paper,  $16.  Cloth,  $20. 

IBM  BASIC  for  Business  and  Home,  by  Rob¬ 
ert  Funkhouser.  Explores  DOS,  writing  pro¬ 
grams,  creating  data  files.  Contains  practical, 
instructive  program  models.  Explains  how  to 
write  programs  to  fit  specific  needs.  Analyzes 
and  designs  an  application  from  scratch  with 
documentation  instructions.  Paper,  $14.95. 
Cloth,  $19.95. 

Executive's  Guide  to  the  IBM  Personal  Com¬ 
puter,  by  Alan  Parker.  Available  at  most 
computer  stores  or  order  directly  from  the 
publisher.  This  loose-leaf  binder  comes  com¬ 
plete  with  two  disks  in  a  sturdy,  leatherlike 
slipcase.  For  the  novice  pc  user  or  executive 
who  does  not  have  time  for  a  computer 
course.  $49.95. 

Howard  W.  Sams  &  Co.,  Inc. 
Indianapolis,  IN 

Interfacing  to  the  IBM  Personal  Computer, 
by  Lewis  C.  Eggbrecht.  Written  by  the  lead 
designer  and  architect  of  the  IBM  pc  itself, 
this  authoritative,  single-volume  presenta¬ 
tion  gives  detailed  technical  data  and  opera¬ 
tional  theory  for  interfacing  the  pc  with  a 
variety  of  hardware  and  software.  Includes 
design  tips  and  examples,  the  operational 
"whys,"  many  8088/8086  ASM  subroutines 
for  interfacing,  and  Basic  programs  as  exam¬ 
ples  of  functions.  $17.95. 

The  PC  DOS  Companion,  by  Stephen  Mur- 
tha  and  Gup  Petrie.  An  illustrated  introduc¬ 
tion  to  all  versions  of  PC-DOS  including  1.0, 
1.1,  and  2.0,  for  users  of  the  pc  and  XT  After 
a  brief  general  background,  PC-DOS  com¬ 
mands  and  pc  hardware /software /DOS  re¬ 
lationships  are  covered  in  full  detail.  Includes 
tips  for  most  effectively  using  each  com¬ 
mand,  a  removable  reference  card  of  com¬ 
mands,  and  more.  $15.95. 

Word  Processing  on  the  IBM  Personal  Com¬ 
puter,  by  Danny  Goodman.  Tells  about  con¬ 
figuring  your  pc  system  to  do  word 
processing,  the  advantages  and  disadvan¬ 
tages  of  pc  hardware,  and  a  major  analysis  of 
fifteen  word-processing  packages  for  the 


for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


pc,  including  program  changes,  ("patches") 
you  can  make  to  improve  a  package's  flexibil¬ 
ity  or  ease  of  operation.  $19.95. 

Mostly  Basic:  Applications  for  your  IBM  PC, 
Book  1,  by  Howard  Berenbon.  Thirty-eight 
chapters  filled  with  useful  and  entertaining 
Basic  programs  for  home  and  office.  Pro¬ 
grams  include  energy  usage,  business  bar- 
chart,  dialing  the  telephone,  learning  a 
foreign  language,  and  more.  On  the  enter¬ 
tainment  side,  there's  an  electronic  harpsi¬ 
chord,  a  tarot  card  reader,  and  a  two-level 
math  dungeon,  among  others.  All  programs 
are  in  IBM  Basic,  and  are  fully  tested  and  de¬ 
bugged.  $12.95. 

Seybold  Publications,  Inc. 

Media,  PA 

The  Seybold  Report  on  Professional  Com¬ 
puting.  Newsletter,  no  advertising,  evaluat¬ 
ing  integrated  decision  support  and 
managerial  software  packages,  text  editing, 
and  so  on.  Industry  news  selected  for  rele¬ 
vance  to  professional  users  of  microcompu¬ 
ters.  Monthly,  $96  per  year. 

SOFTwareHOUSE  International 

Menomonie,  WI 

Softwarehouse  International  A  discount 
club  for  computer  software  and  accessories. 
Club  members  pay  a  one-time  fee  of  $10.00. 
They  receive  an  83-page  catalogue,  several 
newsletters  each  year  reviewing  software  and 
sharing  information.  Members  also  can  ask 
for  advice  or  suggestions. 

Sybex,  Inc. 

Berkeley,  CA 

Programming  the  8086/8088,  by  James  W. 
Coffron.  Learn  how  to  program  the  most 
widely  used  sixteen-bit  microprocessors  in 
industry  today — the  8086  and  the  8088. 
$14.95. 

The  IBM  PC  Connection,  by  James  W. 
Coffron.  Learn  the  simple  techniques  for  put¬ 
ting  your  pc  to  work  controlling  external  de¬ 
vices.  Design  a  computer-controlled  burglar 
alarm  system,  control  lights,  electricity,  and 
other  noncomputer  devices  in  your  home  or 
office.  $13.95. 

Business  Graphics  for  the  IBM  PC,  by  Nelson 
Ford.  Make  your  presentations  and  reports 
more  meaningful  and  easier  to  understand. 
Ready-to-run  programs  allow  you  to  create 
anything  from  the  simplest  line  graph  to 
more  complex  and  illustrative  graphs. 
$15.95. 

IBM  PC  DOS  Handbook ,  by  Richard  Allen 
King.  This  introduction  to  PC-DOS  will  tell 
you  where  to  find  and  how  to  handle  the  var¬ 
ious  part  of  the  DOS  and  how  to  adapt  your 
pc  to  meet  specific  application  needs.  $9.95. 
Useful  BASIC  Programs  for  the  IBM  PC,  by 
Stanley  R.  Trost.  This  collection  of  practical 
programs  allows  you  to  take  full  advantage 
of  each  one  of  the  pc's  functions  without  ever 

197 


P  U  ii  L  I  C  A  T  I  O  N  5 


having  to  create  a  flowchart  or  learn  a  word 
of  Basic.  $fl.95. 

The  Best  of  IBM  PC  Software ,  by  Stanley  R. 
Tfost.  Get  the  best  available  software  for 
your  pc.  Software  experts  review  commer¬ 
cially  available  software  for  word  process¬ 
ing,  financial  and  business  analysis,  scientific 
applications,  and  communications.  S9.95, 
BASIC  Exercises  for  the  IBM  Personal  Com¬ 
puter ,  by  J .  R  Lamoitier.  Learn  the  true  style 
and  subtleties  of  IBM  Basic  through  actual 
practice.  Graduated  exercises  in  math,  busi¬ 
ness,  operations  research,  games,  and  statis¬ 
tics  teach  you  how  to  program  in  Basic. 
$13.95. 

The  ABCs  of  the  IBM  PC,  by  Joan  Lasselle 
and  Carol  Ramsay.  Easy  to  follow,  step-by- 
step  instructions  guide  you  through  assem¬ 
bling  the  system  components  and  performing 
the  first  of  many  useful  operations.  $9.95. 
Doing  Business  with  Pascal ,  by  Richard  and 
Douglas  Hergert.  The  power  of  Pascal  can  be 
used  to  make  business  more  efficient.  The 
first  book  of  its  kind,  this  book  explains  how 
to  design  business  systems  in  Pascal,  write 
practical  business  programs,  and  use  the 
powerful  Pascal  language  extensions.  $17,95, 

Weber  Systems,  Inc* 

Chesterland,  OH 

IBM.  PC  &  XT  Users  Handbook.  A  dear, 
concise,  and  practical  reference  guide  to  the 
capabilities  and  operation  of  the  pc  and  XT, 
A  complete  guide  to  the  setup,  operations, 
maintenance,  and  programming  of  the  pc 
and  XT  is  included*  $15.95, 

Widl  Video  Publications 
Chicago,  IL 

The  Blue  Book  for  the  IBM  Persojial  Com¬ 
puter  A  master  directory  of  software,  hard¬ 
ware,  and  accessories  for  the  pc,  XT,  and 
other  IBM  compatibles.  Lists  programs  in 
dozens  of  categories  from  accounting  to 
word  processing.  $24.95. 

What  A  Computer  Can  Do  For  You ,  A  good 
explanation  of  how  the  computer  can  be  a 
useful  tool.  Written  in  an  easy-to-compre- 
hend  style  with  plenty  of  illustrations  and  ap¬ 
plications  ideas  for  the  beginner.  $5.95. 

The  Computers  Are  Coming ,  An  overall  in¬ 
troduction  to  computing  for  the  lay  person. 
Meant  for  someone  who  has  heard  about 
computers  and  needs  a  simple  introduction. 
Provides  a  good  working  knowledge  of  the 
effects  of  computers  and  their  applications* 
55.95. 

The  Easy  to  Understand  Computer  Dictio¬ 
nary  Computer  terms  defined  in  simple, 
nontechnical  language.  Also  contains  half- 
page  illustrations  for  each  word.  Provides  a 
good  understanding  of  the  more  commonly 
used  terms.  $5.95. 


Wildfire  Publishing  Company 

Goleta,  CA 

Your  Fortune  in  the  Microcomputer  Busi¬ 
ness.  A  two-volume  set  containing  all  the  in¬ 
formation  needed  to  establish  and  maintain  a 
microcomputer  business.  Volume  l  shows  the 
practical  steps  to  start  your  business.  Volume 
II  deals  with  the  problems  a  person  faces  after 
his  business  really  takes  off.  Both  volumes, 
524.95. 

John  Wiley  &  Sons 
New  York,  NY 

PC  Graphics:  Charts ,  Games ,  and  Art  on  the 
IBM  PC,  by  Conklin.  A  hands-on  guide  to 
using  the  graphic  capabilities  of  the  pc.  Even 
computer  novices  learn  to  create  business 
charts,  engineering  data  plots,  computer  art, 
even  arcade  games  in  IBM  pc  Basic.  Numer¬ 
ous  examples  with  detailed  commentary  and 
screen  photos,  $15,95.  Accompanying  pro¬ 
gram  disk  (optional),  $24,95, 

Stock  Selection;  Buying  and  Selling  Stocks 
Using  the  IBM  PC,  by  Jenks  and  Jenks.  A  de¬ 
tailed  guide  to  a  professional  system  of  stock 
analysis  to  make  the  most  profitable  buying 
and  sdSing  decisions.  Shows  how  to  sort, 
track,  and  analyze  up  to  500  stocks,  $17.95. 
Accompanying  program  disk  (optional), 
$49.95. 

PC  DOS ,  Using  the  IBM  PC  Operating  Sys - 


Abacus  Data,  Inc . 

Jacksonville,  FI 

In  forma  25,  Provides  the  Pascal  program¬ 
mers"  interface  and  run  time  mod  u  les  that  give 
total  flexibility  for  development  beyond  the 
structure  of  In  forma  20  relational  database 
management  system.  As  an  upgrade  to  the 
Informa  20 ,  $200. 


tern,  by  Ashley  and  Fernandez.  A  self- teach¬ 
ing  guide  to  pc  DOS  1.1,  teaching,  through 
hundreds  of  examples  and  practice  exercises, 
how  to  use  all  the  functions  of  this  critical 
program,  $14.95. 

Window,  Inc* 

Watertown,  MA 

Window.  A  learning  magazine  on  a  disk  that 
will  be  available  for  the  pc  in  January  1984, 
Each  issue  includes  a  variety  of  programs, 
games,  interactive  reviews,  and  a  feature 
program,  as  well  as  columns  on  VisiCalc  and 
Logo.  Window  is  published  five  times  per 
year.  Single  issue,  $24.95.  Years  subscrip¬ 
tion,  $95. 

Yes!,  Inc* 

Washington, D.C. 

Computers:  A  Comprehensive  Guide.  A 
sixty-four- page  annotated  mail-order  cata¬ 
logue  for  the  best  in  microcomputer  books.  It 
review's  819  books  chosen  to  help  you  make 
the  most  of  your  microcomputer.  Topics  in¬ 
cluded  in  the  guide  are  business  applications, 
assembly  language  and  microprocessors, 
programming  languages,  and  artificial  intelli¬ 
gence,  among  others.  All  books  included  in 
the  guide  are  available  from  the  Yes!  Book¬ 
shop  through  their  mail-order  service.  52, 


Advanced  Micro  Techniques 
Foster  City  CA 

DPatch,  Allows  the  user  to  recover  data 
from  damaged  floppy  and  bard  disks.  Pro¬ 
vides  for  complete  control  by  the  user, 
DPatch  also  provides  a  complete  surface 
analysis  of  any  disk  unit  and  flags  I/O  errors 
so  that  CP/M  will  not  attempt  to  use  the 


System  Software, 
Languages, 

and  Utilities 


softcilk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


Perfect  Mates 
Pro  Works  &  Lotus  1-2-3 
the  winning  strategy 


ProWorks "  means  new  solutions  to  old  problems. 
ProWorks  and  Lotus"  1  -2=3 combine  for  the  winning 
strategy— a  strategy  that  marries  the  rawr  power  of  1-2-3 
with  the  consistency,  speed,  and  flexibility  of  ProWorks, 
They’re  the  perfect  mates,  saving  you  valuable  time  that 
can  be  focused  on  analyses  and  solutions — today,  not 
next  week.  Instead  of  spending  time  setting  up  and 
building  models,  use  the  strategy  that  wins — ProWorks, 
business  and  personal  applications  for  today's 
professional. 

ProWorks"  software  series  includes: 

Executive  Assistant,  Key  Business  Measures, 
and  Business  Forecasting. 


Reston  Computer  Group 

Reston  Publishing  Company,  Inc, 
A  Prentice- Hall  Company 
1 1480  Sunset  Hills  Road 
Reston,  Virginia  22090 

For  more  information  call  us  at: 
(800)  336-0338 

ProWorks  is  a  trademark  of  Reston  Publishing  Company. 
!-2~3  is  a  trademark  of  Lotus  Development  Corporation, 


t:Reslon  Publishing  Company.  Inc. 


Utilities 


faulty  areas.  DPatch  allows  the  user  to  re¬ 
cover  files  that  have  been  erased  from  the 
disk.  $195. 

M icroLib.  Allows  the  user  to  store  many  files 
into  a  single  larger  file.  Once  a  file  is  stored  in 
the  library,  it  is  managed,  updated,  and  re¬ 
trieved  through  simple  MicroLib  commands 
so  that  less  space  is  required  on  disk  to  con¬ 
tain  the  same  number  of  files.  Also,  once  a 
file  is  placed  into  a  library,  MicroLib  provides 
two  levels  of  security:  password  and  encryp¬ 
tion.  $295. 

Aguila  Corp. 

Pepperell,  MA 

E-Setup.  A  printer  control  utility  that  allows 
the  user  to  preset  print  options  before  using 
existing  software.  You  can  specify  print  style, 
line  spacing,  and  paper  control  from  a  sim¬ 
ple,  "plain  English"  menu  without  program¬ 
ming  control  codes  or  installing  additional 
hardware.  Printers  supported  include  IBM, 
Epson,  Okidata,  NEC,  Gemini,  and  Prowri¬ 
ter.  $34.95. 

Ann  Arbor  Software 
Ann  Arbor,  MI 

Textra  ]r.  Full  Screen  Text  Editor.  Use  for  pro¬ 
gram  editing  (Pascal,  C,  Basic,  Assembly), 
simple  document  preparation,  dBase  II  pro¬ 
gramming.  Edit  SuperCalc ,  Lotus 2-2-3  files. 
Documentation  includes  text  tutorial,  100- 
page  reference  manual,  and  on-line  tutorial. 
$39.95. 

Awareco 
Gualala,  CA 

Active  Trace.  Includes  Scope  and  cross-refer¬ 
ence  utilities  for  Basic.  Designed  for  both  be¬ 
ginning  and  advanced  programmers.  While  a 
Basic  program  is  running,  Scope  shows  what 
line  is  being  executed,  what  variables  and 
functions  are  in  the  line,  and  what  their  cur¬ 
rent  values  are.  Active  Trace ,  $79.95.  Scope 
separately,  $49.95. 

Basic  Business  Software,  Inc. 

Las  Vegas,  NV 

Screen.  A  full-screen  text  editor  providing 
many  different  types  of  cursor  movement 
and  text  processing  features,  including  sup¬ 
port  for  the  MicroSoft  mouse.  $35. 

IBM  Basic  Utilities.  A  collection  of  over  fifty 
subroutines  written  in  Basic  for  doing  a  vari¬ 
ety  of  tasks.  Package  includes  a  full-screen 
text  editor  and  a  complete  Basic  preproces¬ 
sor.  $95. 

Blaise  Computing,  Inc. 

Berkeley,  CA 

View  Manager.  A  screen-management  sys¬ 
tem  developed  explicitly  for  the  IBM  pc. 


comprised  of  four  components.  View  Screen 
is  a  menu-driven  program  that  allows  the  in¬ 
teractive  creation,  change,  and  field  speci- 
!  fication  of  display  screens  using  true  screen 
painter.  View  Document  is  also  a  menu- 
driven  system  that  documents  user-devel¬ 
oped  screens.  Database  utilities  include 
programs  that  provide  copying  capability  of 
the  screen  databases  and  other  database 
functions.  The  programmer  uses  procedure 
calls  to  View/Library  to  access  the  screen  dis¬ 
plays  in  the  screen  database.  Block  mode  ca¬ 
pabilities,  help  facilities,  and  complete  screen 
database  access  are  provided.  The  system, 
$275.  The  View/ Library  source  code  is  avail¬ 
able  for  an  additional  $150. 

Blue  Water  Systems 

Oceanside,  CA 

Expandson.  Expands  printer  capabilities. 
Used  with  Epson  MX-80/MX-100  or  IBM 
matrix  printers  with  Graftrax  plus.  Expand¬ 
son  provides  expanded  text,  super-  and  sub¬ 
scripts,  italics  and  compressed  print,  line 
graphics,  and  foreign  character  set.  The  IBM 
Graphics  Printer  version  includes  an  exten¬ 
sive  listing  of  foreign  characters  and  Greek 
and  math  symbols  (no  italics).  Epson,  $39. 
IBM  Graphics,  $49. 

Bourbaki,  Inc. 

Boise,  ID 

FunKey.  Versatile  and  economical  function 
key  programmer  that  enables  you  to  assign 
command  strings  to  your  pc's  function  keys. 
Saves  values  in  files  for  future  use.  $29.95. 

1  DIR.  Replaces  the  DOS  prompt  with  an  in¬ 
teractive  command  system  that  eliminates 
the  need  to  type  commands  and  filenames  on 
the  command  line.  Easy  to  use.  Enables  you 
to  load  files  and  run  programs  by  positioning 
the  file  and  command  cursors  and  pressing 
the  enter  key.  $95. 

California  Software  Products,  Inc. 
Santa  Ana,  CA 

California  10  Pak.  A  set  of  ten  tools  and  aids 
for  use  by  the  professional  or  business  pro¬ 
grammer.  Includes  sort,  browse,  disas¬ 
sembler,  file  comparison,  and  memory 
browse.  $100. 


independent  of  data  file.  Easy  incorporation, 
excellent  error  handling.  Variable/duplicate 
keys  supported.  Comprehensive  manual 
with  demo  and  test  programs.  $150. 
Autosort/ 86M.  A  high-speed  sort /merge/ se¬ 
lect  module  called  as  a  subroutine  from  IBM 
Basic,  Basic  Compiler,  Pascal,  Fortran,  and 
Cobol.  Very  fast  for  large  files.  Sorts /selects 
on  string,  integer,  single  precision/double 
precision  fields.  Sorts  on  ten  keys  indepen¬ 
dently,  ascending  or  descending.  Excellent  er¬ 
ror  handling.  Easy  to  incorporate.  $150. 

Computer  Innovations,  Inc. 

Red  Bank,  NJ 

Ci-C86  C  Compiler.  Implements  the  full  lan¬ 
guage  and  library  as  specified  by  Kemighan 
and  Ritchie's  The  C  Programming  Language. 
The  output  is  relocatable  to  8086/8088  object 
module.  The  linker  combines  object  modules 
with  functions  from  relocatable  library  to 
produce  native  8086/8088  programs.  $395 
one-time  license  fee. 

The  Computer  Workshop,  Inc. 
Houghton,  MI 

The  Menu  Manager.  Allows  you  to  execute 
any  function  the  operating  system  is  capable 
of  performing  with  a  single  keystroke.  Also, 
store  up  to  a  ten-line  descriptive  "file  card"  of 
information  (recalled  with  a  single  keystroke 
to  view  or  modify)  for  any  file  on  a  disk. 
$110. 

Data  Base  Decisions 
Atlanta,  GA 

The  Inside  Track.  Gives  your  pc  speed  and 
control — read  files  as  fast  as  DOS,  c^isplay 
data  faster,  load  programs  faster,  control 
memory  use,  run  any  program  from  your 
program,  and  copy-protect  your  disks.  In¬ 
cludes  fold-out  memory  map,  too.  Disk 
(sixty-one  programs)  and  manual,  $45,  plus 
$2.50  shipping. 

Peeks  'n  Pokes.  A  disk  with  fifty-eight  pro¬ 
grams  (source  included)  and  a  thirty-eight 
page  manual  that  shows  you  how  to  use 
peek,  poke,  inp,  out,  and  DOS/BIOS  func¬ 
tion  calls  from  high-level  languages  to  en¬ 
hance  your  programs  and  control  the  pc. 
$32.50. 


Central  Point  Software 
Portland,  OR 

Copy  II  PC.  Uses  all  available  memory  to 
make  reliable  backups.  Also  includes  a  disk 
drive  speed  test  to  help  keep  your  drives  in 
top  running  order.  $39.95. 

Computer  Control  Systems,  Inc. 
Largo,  FL 

FABS/PC.  A  subroutine  that  provides  rapid 
access  to  very  large  data  files.  Key  sequential, 
multipath,  balanced  B-tree  structure.  Six  key 
files  can  be  opened  simultaneously,  key  file 


Data* Easy  Software,  Data 
Consulting  Group 

Foster  City,  CA 

Menu  Design  Aid.  This  utility  is  designed  for 
flexibility.  You  can  create  menus  with  sophis¬ 
ticated  features  by  following  simple  instruc¬ 
tions.  $15. 

Programmer  Utilities.  These  utilities  can  im¬ 
prove  your  productivity  by  eliminating  time- 
consuming  tasks.  You  can  display,  list,  or  edit 
by  doing  little  more  than  keying  in  the  file 
name.  A  number  of  other  utility  programs 
are  included.  $50. 


SOltalk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


TAKE 

A 

BREAK! 


A 


«5> 


<s> 


4 


<y 


WITH  NIGHT  MISSION 


You  deserve  the  best.  You’ve  earned  it.  Now  reward  yourself  with  a  session  of  Night  Mission  PINBALL, 
the  most  realistic  and  challenging  arcade  simulation  ever  conceived!  ■  Stunning  graphics  and  dazzling 
sound  effects  put  Night  Mission  PINBALL  in  a  class  by  itself.  Game  features:  multi¬ 
ball  and  multi-player  capabilities,  ten  different  professionally  designed  levels  of  play, 
and  an  editor  that  lets  you  create  your  own  custom  modes.  ■  So  take  a  break  with 
Night  Mission  PINBALL  from  SubLOGIC.  Winner  of  Electronic  Games  magazine’s 
1983  Arcade  Award  for  Best  Computer  Audiovisual  Effects. 


See  your  dealer. . . 

or  write  or  call  for  more  information.  For  direct  orders  please  add  $1 .50  for 
shipping  and  specify  UPS  or  first  class  mail  delivery,  Illinois  residents  add  5% 
sales  tax.  American  Express,  Diner's  Club,  MasterCard,  and  Visa  accepted. 

Order  Line:  800/637-4983 


LOGIC 

Corporation 
713  Edgebrook  Drive 
Champaign  IL  61820 
(217)  359-8482  Telex:  206995 


Utilities 


Screen  Design  Aid ,  This  screen  utility  is  a 
quick  method  of  generating  screen  designs. 
Simply  key  in  the  field  titles,  their  sizes,  and 
enter.  The  resulting  screen  and  Basic  state¬ 
ments  are  automatically  created  and  saved. 
$35. 

Datatek,  Inc. 

Clearwater,  FL 

Datatext.  Text  editor  allows  user  to  input, 
edit,  and  manipulate  text  via  a  CRT  screen. 
Includes  wordwrap,  find  and  replace,  hori¬ 
zontal  scroll  to  255  columns,  and  help  screens 
at  all  levels.  $175. 

Day  star  Systems,  Inc. 

Dallas,  TX 

UltraFast.  A  software  tool  that  allows  a  por¬ 
tion  of  the  pc's  RAM  memory  to  emulate  up 
to  four  double-sided,  forty-track  disk  drives. 
UltraFast  allows  these  four  drives  to  be  any 
combination  of  physical  drives  and  UltraFast 
emulated  drives.  UltraFast  is  designed  to 
make  use  of  PC-DOS  entirely.  No  modifica¬ 
tions  (patches)  to  PC-DOS  1.1  are  required. 
UltraFast  is  configurable  from  the  keyboard. 
$39.95. 

UltraTrap.  A  parity  error- handling  utility 
program.  Intercepts  and  circumvents  the 
normal  parity  handler.  UltraTrap  will,  for 
most  soft  error  occurrences,  reset  the  parity 
error  detection  circuitry  and  report  the  con¬ 
dition  to  the  user  via  the  monitor.  The  user 
may  then  choose  to  (1)  ignore,  (2)  abort,  or(3) 
reboot  the  system  via  a  soft  boot  sequence. 
$39.95. 

Digital  Research 
Pacific  Grove,  CA 

Concurrent  CP/M.  Runs  up  to  four  separate 
jobs  simultaneously  on  the  pc  or  XT. 
$350. 

dilithium  Press 
Beaverton,  OR 

VisiCalc  Worksheets.  Book/software  pack¬ 
age  includes  thirty-two  different  worksheets 
on  disk.  $34.95. 

Distributed  Software  Systems,  Inc. 
Northbrook,  IL 

XF-Dump.  A  full-screen  general  purpose  util¬ 
ity  designed  for  programmers  who  may  need 
to  display  and  change  the  contents  of  existing 
files.  It  is  capable  of  handling  all  known  file 
structures  and  absolute  sectors  on  a  disk,  dis¬ 
playing  the  data  in  both  its  character  and 
hexadecimal  representation.  $35. 

Dynacomp,  Inc. 

Rochester,  NY 

Basic  Scientific  Subroutines ,  Volume  /,  by  F. 


Ruckdeschel.  The  first  in  a  series  of  books  de¬ 
signed  to  provide  microcomputer  users  with 
scientific  routines  written  in  Basic.  These 
subroutines  have  been  designed  to  facilitate 
the  application  of  microcomputers  to  scien¬ 
tific  tasks  that  have  previously  been  largely 
in  the  domain  of  the  large  timeshare  main¬ 
frame  computers.  $44.95. 

Data  Smoother.  This  package  provides  the 
user  with  a  fast  and  easy  means  to  least- 
squares  smooth  equally  spaced  data  and  plot 
the  results.  Any  size  data  set  may  be  treated 
within  the  memory  limits.  The  variation  in 
each  data  point  is  smoothed  according  to  the 
weighted  average  of  the  points  surrounding 
it.  The  averaging  span  is  three  to  twenty-five 
points.  The  order  of  the  local  smoothing  is 
linear  to  quintic  (first  to  fifth  degree  polyno¬ 
mial).  Also  calculated  are  the  smoothed  first 
and  second  derivatives  of  the  data  at  each 
point.  $23.95. 

Digital  Filter.  A  comprehensive  data  process¬ 
ing  program  that  permits  the  user  to  design 
his  own  filter  function  or  choose  from  a  menu 
of  filter  forms.  The  filter  forms  are  subse¬ 
quently  converted  into  nonrecursive  convo¬ 
lution  coefficients  that  permit  rapid  data 
processing  in  the  explicit  design  mode;  the 
shape  of  the  frequency  transfer  function  is 
specified  by  directly  entering  points  along  the 
desired  filter  curve,  $53.95. 

Fourier  Analyzer.  A  scientific  program  that 
can  be  applied  to  examine  the  frequency 
spectrum  characteristics  of  defined  duration 
signals,  such  as  groups  of  pulses.  The  user  in¬ 
puts  a  data  set  that  is  Fourier  transformed 
into  the  frequency  space  descriptors  of  am¬ 
plitude  and  phase.  The  amplitude  and  phase 
results  are  displayed  in  tabular  form.  The  in¬ 
put  data  and  calculated  results  may  also  be 
plotted  at  the  users  option.  $23.95. 
Harmonic  Analyzer.  The  third  in  Dyna- 
comp's  series  of  Fourier  transform  software 
packages.  Whereas  Fourier  Analyzer  and 
Transfer  Function  Analyzer  were  designed 
with  limited  duration  signals  in  mind.  Har¬ 
monic  Analyzer  is  specific  to  repetitive  wave 
forms  (cyclic  processes).  $33.95. 

Stattest.  Performs  statistical  tests  of  hy¬ 
potheses  and  includes  t-tests,  chi-square 
tests,  and  F-tests  as  well  as  simple  regression 
and  a  random  number  generator.  $33.95. 

Ellis  Computing,  Inc. 

San  Francisco,  CA 

Nevada  Edit.  CP/M  based,  character-ori¬ 
ented,  full-screen,  video  text  editor,  designed 
for  computer  program  text  preparation.  In¬ 
cludes  single  key  commands  for  cursor  con¬ 
trol,  scrolling,  block-moves,  search  and 
replace,  customizable  tab  stops,  and  default- 
file  type  menu  selection.  Easily  configured  to 
most  terminals.  $29.95. 

Nevada  Fortran .  Based  on  the  ANSI-66 
standards.  Popular  extensions  include  if- 
then-else  constructs,  trace-style  debugging, 


copy  statement,  arrays  up  to  seven  dimen¬ 
sions,  and  random  access  file  support.  A  fast, 
high-performance  compiler,  it  generates  8080 
machine  language  on  all  CP/M-based  sys¬ 
tems  with  48K  RAM.  $29.95. 

Nevada  Pilot  ( Programmed ,  Inquiry,  Learn¬ 
ing ,  or  Teaching).  A  string-oriented  lan¬ 
guage,  designed  for  interactive  applications 
such  as  data  entry,  programmed  instruction, 
and  testing,  with  an  integrated  fullscreen  text 
editor  and  commands  to  drive  optional 
equipment.  Meets  the  Pilot-73  standards  for 
compatibility  with  older  versions.  $29.95. 

Ensign  Software 
Boise,  ID 

Electronic  Disk.  Creates  the  equivalent  of  a 
disk  drive  in  your  extra  RAM  memory.  Also 
includes  a  print  spooler  that  frees  the  com¬ 
puter  for  concurrent  use  while  printing  is  tak¬ 
ing  place.  96K  minimum,  one  disk  drive, 
either  display,  DOS  1.1  or  DOS  2.0.  $49.95. 
ISAM  Routines .  ISAM  (Indexed  Sequential 
Access  Method)  provides  keyed  access  to 
data  files  for  reading,  writing,  updating,  and 
deleting  records  within  the  files.  Browse  for¬ 
ward  and  backward  in  key  sequence.  Update 
any  part  of  the  record,  including  the  key. 
Routines  accessed  from  any  Basic  applica¬ 
tion.  48K,  one  disk  drive,  any  display,  DOS. 
$69.95. 

Fast  Sort.  This  machine  language  sort  routine 
is  for  use  with  Basic  programs.  It  will  sort 
any  array  into  ascending  or  descending  or¬ 
der.  Sorts  variable  length  strings,  fixed  length 
strings,  integers,  single  precision,  and  double 
precision  arrays.  48K,  one  disk  drive,  either 
display,  DOS,  disk  Basic,  $24.95. 

Fox  &  Geller,  Inc. 

Elmwood  Park,  NJ 

dUtil.  A  utility  that  performs  a  variety  of 
functions  for  users  of  Ashton-Tates  dBase II. 
These  include  syntax  checking,  increased 
speed,  documentation,  and  program  imple¬ 
mentation.  $99. 

Frontier  Technologies 
Milwaukee,  WI 

I/O  Test.  Tell  the  program  what  addresses  to 
check  and  the  program  shows  you  the  re¬ 
sults.  This  program  can  check  printer,  RS- 
232C,  and  real  time  clock  interfaces  (as  well 
as  any  other  interface  in  the  I/O  channel). 
$30. 

RS-232Test.  Checks  out  your  RS-232C  inter¬ 
faces.  It  works  with  both  COMl  and  COM2. 
The  program  includes  a  plug  to  install  onto 
your  interface  during  testing.  The  program 
checks  your  RS-232C  up  to  baud  rates  of 
9600.  $30. 

PrinTest.  Will  check  your  printer  interface 
for  malfunctions.  It  will  work  with  LPTl, 
LPT2,  and  LPT3.  The  program  finds  which 
of  these  printers  is  in  your  computer  and 
checks  it.  $25. 


202 


softcilk 


Utilities 


MemTest.  Will  check  the  memory  functions 
on  any  IBM  expansion  board  (FTCs  or  oth¬ 
ers).  The  program  will  check  up  to  1  mega¬ 
byte  of  RAM  on  your  computer.  The 
program  can  also  check  to  RAM  memory  in 
the  IBM  monochrome  or  color/graphic 
board.  This  is  the  ideal  tool  for  memory 
board  manufacturers  as  well  as  end  users. 
525. 

Print  Spooler.  Allows  printing  to  become  a 
background  function.  The  program  allows 
the  user  to  choose  the  size  of  the  buffer, 
which  one  or  up  to  all  three  printers  should 
be  spooled,  and  parallel  or  serial  printing, 
570. 

RTCt  Real  Time  Clock  Controller.  Initialize 
and  read  the  date  and  time  from  the  real  time 
clock  option  on  Frontier  Technologies  Mem¬ 
ory,  Advanced  Communications,  and  IEEE- 
466  controller  boards.  The  program  can  be 
used  from  PC-D05  as  well  as  Basic.  $25. 

Gryphon  Microproducts 

Silver  Spring,  MD 

dBR*.  Adds  mathematical,  statistical,  and 
string  functions  to  dBase  // — exponentiation, 
square  root,  log,  and  trig  functions  with  pre¬ 
cision  from  seven  to  nine  digits.  Also  in¬ 
cludes  btrim,  pack  and  nospace  string 
functions.  Written  in  machine  language  and 
dBase  code.  Compatible  with  dB/R-A.  5 150. 
The  Array  Program,  dB/R-A .  Allows  dBase 
II  to  use  up  to  ten  three-dimensional  arrays  of 
numeric,  character,  and  logical  data.  Can  be 
used  to  expand  the  number  of  memory  varia¬ 
bles  from  63  to  over  65,000.  Written  entirely 
in  8085  machine  language,  fast  and  easy  to 
use.  128K  memory  recommended.  $200. 

Harper  Business  Systems 
Bellevue,  WA 

HBSort.  A  standalone  (original  file  in/sorted 
file  out)  disk  sort.  It  is  simple  enough  to  be 
used  by  a  novice  programmer.  The  HBSort 
Book  contains  many  helpful  programming 
tips,  HBSort  sorts  fixed  format  records  up  to 
1020  bytes  in  length  and  supports  complex 
user-constructed  sort  keys.  Files  with  up  to 
2500  records  can  be  sorted.  532.50  (includes 
HBSnoop }, 

HBSnoop.  A  tool  that  prints  out  the  contents 
of  direct  disk  files — all  the  records  or  just  se¬ 
lected  records,  the  whole  record  or  just  se¬ 
lected  fields,  HBSuoop  eliminates  the  need  to 
write  hie  debugging  programs,  S32.5Q  (in¬ 
cludes  HBSort). 

Hi  Tech  Computer  Services 

Fairfield,  CT 

The  Pascal  Toolkit.  Gives  you  four  MS-DOS 
Pascal  units,  including  a  complete  turtle 
graphics  implementation,  console  control 
(keyboard  and  text  screen),  complete  serial 


communications  support  and  printer  con¬ 
trol.  Examples  show  you  how  to  use  package 
to  add  full  screen  data  input,  menu  selection, 
and  graph  drawing  to  your  programs.  Batch 
programs  provided  to  install  package,  $150. 
Scientific  Support  Package.  Includes  units 
that  perform  complex  math,  matrix  math, 
and  vector  math,  Abo  six  statistical  distribu¬ 
tions,  spline,  regression,  smoothing,  equa¬ 
tion  solving,  and  sorting  as  well  as  a  library 
of  often-used  mathematical  functions.  Pack¬ 
age  contains  fifty-five  procedures  that  are 
easily  added  to  your  MS-DOS  Pascal  pro¬ 
grams.  $95. 

Info-Pros,  Inc. 

Irvine,  CA 

Info -Reports.  A  flexible  report  writer  that 
uses  existing  data  files  to  produce  compre¬ 
hensive,  cosmetically  pleasing  reports  and 
forms.  A  printer  spacing  chart  is  shown  on 
the  display  screen,  allowing  the  user  to  posi¬ 
tion  each  field  and  define  its  contents  exactly 
as  required.  Data  from  up  to  four  files  can  be 
combined  into  a  single  report.  5125. 
Info-Sort.  A  fast,  high-performance  sort /se¬ 
lect  program  designed  to  be  used  as  a  stand¬ 
alone  utility  or  to  be  interfaced  with  existing 
applications,  Jn/o-$orf  will  quickly  sort  your 
data  records  into  whatever  sequence  you  de¬ 


sire.  It  can  read  and  sort  1000  records  on  a 
six-byte  string  key  and  create  an  index  file  in 
ten  seconds  or  less.  $95, 

Information  Access  Corp. 

Shalimar,  FL 

D2Form.  Forms  generator  allows  you  to  cre¬ 
ate  data-entry  forms  on  your  CRT  Each 
field,  its  length,  and  mapped  location  are 
stored  automatically  in  a  file.  This  informa¬ 
tion  can  be  recalled  by  your  own  programs, 
without  using  data  statements.  Forms  3re 
easily  updated.  Menu  driven.  Documenta¬ 
tion  included,  $45, 

D2BAKRST.  Files  stored  on  a  hard  disk  can 
be  copied  (backed  up)  onto  floppy  disks  with 
this  program  even  when  the  file  size  exceeds  a 
single  floppy  s  capacity  Built-in  help  screens 
and  documentation  are  included.  Files  can  be 
restored  to  the  hard  disk  with  ease,  $35. 

International  Software  Alliance 
Santa  Barbara,  CA 

Btrieve.  A  powerful  record -management  sys¬ 
tem  designed  for  applications  programmers, 
Btrieve  builds  files  based  on  B-tree  structures 
and  allows  for  both  random  and  sequential 
keyed  access  to  records  in  a  database  Btrieve 
itself  requires  10K  of  memory  and  supports 
applications  written  in  IBM  Basic  or  IBM 
Pascal.  Utilities  and  samples  provided,  5195, 


for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer 

Find  Information  Fast  In  Your  IBM 
DOS  and  BASIC  Manuals 

These  lb  im  la r-rcin forced  tab  dividers  arc  loaded  w  iih  information 
that  summarizes  each  section  id' your  manual 

They  provide  the  onb  practical  wav  in  find  ihr  information  vou  need 
in  your  IBM  IX  >5  and  BASIC  manuals. 

SitperTubs  end  the  frustrations  “ 

of  trying  to  loeaie  —  l 

the  important 
information 
t  ou  nceil 


IHM  h  j  irjJemjrk  nf  Inlcmjtmn.d  Ilii'iHr"  MlthlDP  <  "fp 


Super  Tubs 
art  available  lor  SO. 95 
at  computer  and  software 

Mores  naii  on  wide,  or  from  Siechcrt  &  Wood  Technical  Publications, 
133  West  C  ulurado  Blvd  .  Pasadena.  (,A  91  MI5  VISA,  Mastercard,  or 
check  accepted  Uld  one  dollar  for  shipping  C  alifornia  residents  please 
add  sales  tax.  Please  specify  1)05  1 .0/1.1  or  IX  >5  2,0 
If  vou  are  not  eompleich  satisfied  with  StiperTahs,  mum  them  for  a 
full  refund 


203 


for  the  JBM  Personal  Computer  December  1933 


Utilities 


IRC  Associates 
Saginaw,  MI 

One-Key  Step-Scroll.  An  enhancement  for 
the  Basic  List  command.  This  subroutine  will 
step  forward,  backward,  or  relist  the  same 
statements.  Two  windows,  mono  and  color, 
40  to  80  columns,  all  versions  of  DOS-Basic, 
no  reduction  of  user  memory.  Displays  disk- 
files,  memory,  variables,  and  sorted  direc¬ 
tory.  Renum  enhancement.  $20. 


Johnson  Associates  Software  Inc. 

Redding,  CA 

ISAM.  300.  Index  Sequential  Access  Method 
for  Basic,  Pascal,  C,  and  assembly  language 
programmers.  This  machine  language  imple¬ 
mentation  of  ISAM  provides  extremely  high 
performance.  Access  time  to  any  record  on 
an  eight  megabyte  file  is  less  than  one  second. 
ISAM  300  provides  automatic  recovery  of 
deleted  space.  Index  only  structures  for  sec¬ 
ondary  key  access;  get  previous  and  third 
level  of  index  for  high  performance  access  to 
large  files.  $190. 


DE  200.  This  set  of  subroutines  can  be  added 
to  your  application  program  to  both  simplify 
the  programming  and  improve  operational 
characteristics  of  keyboard  data  entry,  A 
data  entry  form  is  drawn  on  the  display 
screen.  The  resulting  picture  is  stored  on 
disk.  The  subroutines  use  this  form  as  the 
only  program  necessary  to  control  the  appli¬ 
cation-keyed  data  entry.  After  the  complete 
screen  of  data  has  been  entered,  the  system 
pauses  for  visual  verification  of  the  data.  If 
corrections  are  necessary,  keying  the  field 
number  allows  that  single  field  to  be  reen¬ 
tered.  The  enter  key  releases  the  data  for  the 
application  program  to  process.  $80. 

Jupiter  Island  Corp. 

Emeryville,  CA 

ColorText.  Accesses  the  capabilities  of  the 
IDS  Prism  printers  without  programming: 
more  than  twenty-one  colors,  six  type  sizes, 
foreign  language  characters,  proportional 
type,  many  text  formatting  features.  Fifty- 
three  commands.  $149. 

Krown  Computing 

Scotts  Valley,  CA 

The  Last  One.  A  code  generator  accepting 
plain  English  commands  from  diversified 
menus  translates  into  cost  reduction. 
Produces  error-free,  ready-to-use  programs 
in  Basic.  Tailor-made  in-house  modification 
capability.  $495. 

Laboratory  Microsystems,  Inc. 

Los  Angeles,  CA 

PC/Forth.  A  complete  programming  pack¬ 
age  including  interpreter /compiler,  assem¬ 
bler,  full  screen  editor,  and  many  utilities. 
Extensions  available  include  8087  support, 
cross  computers,  advanced  color  graphics, 
modem  control,  and  custom  character  set 
generator.  Prices  start  at  $100. 

Learning  Tools 
Cambridge,  MA 

SoftDoc.  A  flexible,  general-purpose  on-line 
documentation  system  for  UCSD  Pascal 
software  developers  who  want  to  provide 
on-line  support  to  their  users.  As  part  of  a 
UCSD  Pascal  application  program,  SoftDoc 
provides  on-line  user  access  to  tutorials  or 
technical  information.  When  users  have  a 
question, SofDoc  can  give  them  immediate 
answers.  Using  single-key  commands  users 
can  easily  locate  specific  information,  browse 
through  documentation,  and  display  indexed 
information.  $395,  plus  royalties. 

Logitech,Inc. 

Palo  Alto,  CA 

Modula-2/86.  A  complete  development  sys¬ 
tem  for  programming  8086/8088-based  mi¬ 
crocomputer  in  the  Modula-2  language.  It  is 
available  for  CP/M-86  and  PC-DOS.  The 


Because  our  new  Micro  Cookbook  makes  it  easier  than  ever  for  you  to 

bake,  broil,  roast  and  fry  ’em. 

Not  only  by  giving  you  more  than 
“  150  recipes— which  it  does.  But  by 
simplifying  the  whole  art,  of  cooking. 
You  see,  Micro  Cookbook  eliminates 
messy,  confusing  recipe  hies,  instead 
you  simply  insert  our  program  into  your 
computer  and  select  any  recipe  your  heart,  or 
stomach,  desires.  Ask  for  a  recipe  by  name, 
ingredients  or  category. 

The  recipe  you  select  can  be  one  of  the  mouth-watering 
dishes  we  include— or  you  can  create  a  diskette  of  your  own  favorites.  And 
you  can  constantly  modify  your  selections,  adding  new  triumphs  and  remov¬ 
ing  recipes  that,  ah,  bomb. 

These,  and  Micro  Cookbook’s  other  features,  will  make  your  life  in  the 
kitchen  a  breeze. 

With  this  in  mind,  is  it  any  wonder  Micro  Cookbook  makes  this  guy 
so  nervous? 

s 

Versions  available  for  Apple  |[  +,  Ik*  (HO  col)  and  IBM  PC 
((5‘IK,  PC  fX.)S).  The  cost  $411.  Advanced  Functions  Package 
(requires  Micro  Cookbook)  for  IBM  PC  ( 12HK.  P( '  IK  >S  or  MS 
DOS)  and  Apple  II  +,  lie  (04  K,  80  col).  The  cost  $:{0.  Soups  A 
Salads,  Appetizers,  or  Dessert  options,  $12  each.  Check  your 
dealer  first.  MC/V1SA  check,  phone  or  mail  order  accepted. 

Please  specify  computer  and  add  $2  handling. 

APPLE.  IBM  and  MS  DOS  arc  registered  trademarks  of  Apple 
Computer,  Inc.,  IBM  Corporation,  and  Microsoft,  Inc.,  respect 


■spectively. 


VIRTUAL 

COMBINA.TICS 

P.O.  Box  755,  Roekport,  MA  01966 
(617)  546-6553 


Why  fish  are  terrified 
ofour  software. 


softcilk 


Utilities 


Modula-2/86  package  includes  a  compiler, 
linker,  symbolic  debugger,  module  library, 
user  manual,  and  the  book  Programming  in 
Modula-2,  by  Niklaus  Wirth.  The  compiler 
translates  standard  Modula-2  source  to 
ROMable  native  machine  code.  $495. 

MicroMatch 
Tujunga,  CA 

Memory  Test  Diagnostic  Program.  $24.95. 

Microrim,  Inc, 

Bellevue,  WA 

Extended  Report  Writer  Generates  complex 
and  detailed  reports  from  database  files.  It 
can  retrieve  data  from  multiple  files,  change 
uppercase  to  lowercase  (and  vice  versa),  con¬ 
ditionally  print  reports  from  within  another 
report,  and  define  masks  to  align  columns  on 
the  decimal  point.  $150. 

Microtech  Exports,  Inc. 

Palo  Alto,  CA 

Reformatter.  This  software  allows  pc  users  to 
exchange  data  files  and/or  source  code  with 
IBM  mainframes  or  other  mainframes  that 
read  the  IBM  3740  format.  An  enhanced  user 
interface  makes  it  easy  to  operate  and  pro¬ 
vides  control  over  IBM  3740  file  parameters. 
Requires  one  eight-in.  add-on  floppy  disk 
drive.  $350. 

Micro  Ware,  Inc. 

Kingston,  MA 

87Pascal/RTOS.  The  Micro  Ware  configured 
version  of  the  Intel  Pascal  compiler  is  the 
most  powerful  compiler  available  to  pc  users 
at  this  time.  It  is  an  ISO-Standard  Pascal, 
with  8087-8088  exceptions.  These  make  it 
possible  to  use  all  the  8087  data  types  di¬ 
rectly,  while  generating  modules  in  one  of  the 
three  Intel  memory  models.  $1,350. 
87Fortran/RTOS.  An  adaptation  of  the  Intel 
Fortran-86  ANSI-77  compiler.  Generates 
8087  code  allowing  use  of  all  8087  data  types. 
The  complete  subset  I/O  is  supported.  Also 
allows  overlays  and  832K  addressing.  87For- 
tran/RTOS  is  ideal  for  large,  number-inten¬ 
sive  or  control-hardware  applications. 
RTOS-real  time  operating  system  is  in¬ 
cluded.  $1,350. 

Matrixpak.  Written  in  assembly  language, 
this  runtime  package  accurately  manipulates 
large  matrices  at  very  fast  speeds.  Includes 
matrix  inversion  and  the  solution  of  simulta¬ 
neous  linear  equations.  Callable  from  MS 
Fortran  3.13,  MS  Pascal  3.13,  SSS  Fortran, 
and  MicroWare  87Macro,  87Basic,  and 
RTOS  compilers.  $150  per  module. 

87Basic.  A  set  of  patches  to  the  IBM  Basic 
compiler  and  its  two  libraries  Bascom.lib  and 
Basrun.exe.  These  give  the  user  total  and 


transparent  8087  support.  Included  is  addi¬ 
tion,  subtraction,  multiplication  and  divi¬ 
sion,  trigonometries  and  transcendentals, 
hyperbolics,  and  encoding  and  decoding.  It 
will  speed  up  compiled  Basic  programs  by 
factors  of  five  to  fifteen.  $150. 

Morgan  Computing  Co. 

Dallas,  TX 

Trace86.  Runs  programs  at  slow  speed  while 
displaying,  all  on  one  screen,  an  assembly 
version  of  a  compiled  program,  the  machine 
registers,  and  data  in  memory.  It  provides 
general  utility  and  memory  manipulation 
functions  including  changes  (words,  bytes, 
or  blocks),  moves,  pattern  search,  and  block 
comparison.  Also  allows  for  extensive  exam¬ 
ination  of  and  changes  to  memory  and  disk 
files.  Requires  128K.  $125. 

Ted.  A  programmer's  text  editor  on  source 
and  data  (ASCII)  files,  with  full  screen  and 
cursor  control.  Features  include  programma¬ 
ble  function  keys,  a  powerful  macro  capabil¬ 
ity,  column  reference  indicator,  and 
manipulation  features:  move,  copy,  locate, 
and  merge  files  or  designated  lines  of  code. 
Requires  128K.  $95. 

Copy  Protector.  A  software  utility  that  pre¬ 
vents  the  unauthorized  duplication  of  pro¬ 
grams.  The  normal  use  of  copy  and  diskeopy 
commands  to  duplicate  program  disks  is  ren¬ 
dered  ineffective.  Requires  64K.  $95. 

Mountain  View  Press,  Inc. 

Mountain  View,  CA 
MVP-FORTH  PADS  Professional  applica¬ 
tions  development  systems.  Includes  public 
domain  source  and  complete  instructions  for 
program  development.  $400. 

MVP-FORTH  Programmer's  Kit.  A  com¬ 
plete  public  domain  version  of  the  Forth 
computer  language  including  disks,  user's 
manual,  and  reference  books.  $150. 

Network  Consulting,  Inc. 

Burnaby,  BC,  Canada 
Practical  UCSD  Pascal.  Includes  a  Pascal 
compiler  combined  with  the  fast  p-System 
operating  system  and  a  special  guide  that 
clearly  describes  how  to  begin  programming 
with  the  p-System.  $295. 

Coherent.  Provides  the  multiuser,  multitask¬ 
ing  programming  capabilities  of  a  mainframe 
on  a  microcomputer.  It  is  compatible  with 
Unix  7  and  offers  more  than  150  of  that  sys¬ 
tem's  commands.  Because  it  was  indepen¬ 
dently  developed,  Coherent  is  half  the  cost  of 
comparable  systems.  $645. 
p-System  Operating  System.  Runs  1.5  to  5 
times  faster  than  the  IBM  version.  A  com¬ 
plete  development  system  compatible  with 
many  pc  lookalikes,  it  includes  a  screen  edi¬ 
tor,  file  manager,  RAM  disk  support,  dy¬ 
namic  memory  allocation,  and  a  print  buffer. 
$795. 


Norell  Data  Systems  Corp. 

Los  Angeles,  CA 

Disk  Magic.  A  disk  dump  and  patch  utility 
that  lets  the  computer  user  get  at  the  bits. 
Provides  many  powerful  features,  yet  com¬ 
bines  menu  control  with  two-dimensional 
screen  interaction.  Full-screen  display  of  disk 
records  by  absolute  sector  number  or  by  file 
sector  allocation  is  supported,  along  with  al¬ 
ternate  sector  sizes.  Program  will  display 
disk  data  in  ASCII  and  hex,  and  the  cursor 
can  be  positioned  using  the  cursor  control 
keys  to  change  any  byte.  A  comprehensive 
manual,  containing  many  introductory  les¬ 
sons  to  DOS  file-allocation  methods,  is  in¬ 
cluded,  $49.95. 

QBasic  Pre-Processor.  QBasic  solves  Basic 
problems  by  performing  symbolic  label  proc¬ 
essing;  formatted  program  listing  with  page 
numbers,  titles,  subtitles,  time,  and  date. 
Program  permits  the  inclusion  of  library  rou¬ 
tines  with  the  ability  to  replace  strings  of  text 
within  the  included  block  and  to  support  lo¬ 
cal  labels;  and  cross-reference  listing  of  all 
program  labels.  $49.95. 

Autodoc  Basic  Utility.  A  series  of  optimiza¬ 
tion  routines  that  complements  the  develop¬ 
ment,  maintenance,  and  use  of  application 
programs  written  using  the  pc's  Basic  lan¬ 
guage  interpreter.  A  cross-reference  utility  al¬ 
lows  the  printing  of  variable  and  line-number 
usage.  Goto  and  Gosub  statement  reference 
listing,  and  the  generation  of  a  revised  copy 
of  the  source  program  file  with  all  remark 
statements  deleted.  A  dynamic  symbol  table 
processor  identifies  the  order  that  variables 
are  entered  into  the  symbol  table,  thus  mak¬ 
ing  it  highly  useful  in  the  determination  of 
program  execution  speed  improvement.  A 
Basic  program-compare  utility  allows  the 
programmer  to  determine  line  differences  be¬ 
tween  two  versions  of  a  program.  These 
three  utilities  augment  a  Basic  programmer's 
tool  kit.  $49,95. 

Pack  &  Crypt.  A  three-program  package  de¬ 
signed  to  save  disk  space  and  to  provide  secu¬ 
rity  to  sensitive  data.  Pack  uses  Huffman 
coding  to  compress  files,  saving  20  percent  to 
60  percent  on  text  and  program  source  files. 
Crypt  takes  a  user-provided  password  and 
employs  a  sophisticated  Payne-Lewis- 
Tausworth-based  cipher  algorithm  to  en¬ 
crypt  the  data  and  to  protect  the  file  against 
unauthorized  readers.  The  third  program  in 
the  package,  Hexer,  allows  you  to  convert 
any  Packed  or  Crypted  file  into  a  form  suit¬ 
able  for  transmission  through  a  communica¬ 
tions  link.  $49.95. 

Lisp/88.  An  interpreter  for  Lisp ,  a  program¬ 
ming  language  widely  used  in  artificial  intelli¬ 
gence  experimentation.  Includes  more  than 
seventy-five  built-in  functions  and  offers  the 
essential  Lisp  data  structures  and  functions, 
including  sixteen-bit  integer  arithmetic,  list 
operations,  recursion,  string  operations,  file 


for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


205 


Utilities 


I/O,  and  garbage  collection  for  automatic  re¬ 
use  of  memory.  A  simple  editor  and  Hie  pack¬ 
age,  written  in  Lisp,  is  included  with  the 
software  package.  This  allows  editing  Lisp 
function  definitions  and  saving  them  on  disk. 
Debugging  aids  included  in  the  package  are 
trace  and  optional  break  on  errors.  $49.95. 

Personal  Computer  Products 
Santa  Clara,  CA 

Serial  Printer  Program.  Allows  the  pc  to  send 
files  to  a  serial  printer.  It  supports  line  widths, 
basic  formatting,  paging,  form  handling,  and 
filename/date/time  stamping.  Included  is  a 
manual  and  a  translation  table  for  customi¬ 
zation.  Supported  baud  rates  are  75  to  9600. 
$69.95. 

Peter  Norton  Computing 

Santa  Monica,  CA 

The  Norton  Utilities.  A  powerful  supplement 
to  DOS,  providing  file  recovery,  disk  explo¬ 
ration,  screen  control,  and  other  functions. 
$80. 

Access  Tools  for  the  IBM/ PC.  Provides  a  set 
of  assembly  language  subroutines  to  give 
your  programs,  in  Basic  and  other  languages, 
access  to  all  the  ROM-BIOS  routines.$80  in¬ 
cluding  the  accompanying  book. 

Opt-Tech  Data  Processing 
Huble,  TX 

Opt-Tech  Sort.  A  high-speed  general  purpose 
sort/merge  utility  for  the  pc -compatible  sys¬ 
tems.  It  features  the  ability  to  process  fixed  or 
variable  length  records  on  up  to  nine  keys. 
There  is  no  limit  to  the  size  or  the  number  of 
records  that  can  be  processed.  Opt-Tech  Sort 
can  be  used  as  a  DOS  command  or  as  a  sub¬ 
routine.  $75. 

Persyst 
Irvine,  CA 

PC/ Format.  An  interactive  screen  formatter 
designed  to  simplify  the  programmer's  task 
of  defining  professional  screen  displays  while 
controlling  and  editing  keyboard  data  entry. 
$125. 

Insta-Drive  3.00.  Improves  the  execution 
speed  of  programs  by  allowing  users  to  add 
up  to  four  disk  emulators  with  storage  capac¬ 
ities  ranging  from  32  to  360K,  $50. 

Wait-Less  Printing  3.00.  Spool  program 
makes  it  possible  for  users  to  continue  work¬ 
ing  with  their  pc  at  the  same  time  data  are 
being  printed.  $50. 

Port-A-Soft 
Orem,  UT 

Disk  Format  Conversion /Downloading 
Service.  Convert  to /from  over  sixty  disk  for¬ 
mats  including  various  IBM  and  Apple  disk 
formats.  Call  for  price. 


Pro  Active  Systems  Corp. 

Palo  Alto,  CA 

ProSort.  A  tree-insertion  sort  written  in  Pas¬ 
cal.  It  reads  and  merges  up  to  eight  files,  ex¬ 
tracting  desired  records,  sorting  them,  and 
writing  them  to  an  output  file.  Batch  mode  or 
interactive  mode;  no  limit  on  specifications 
or  number  of  data  records.  $75,  including 
source  code  and  documentation. 

Prodata,  Inc. 

Boise,  ID 

KSAM.  Allows  keyed  data  files  in  Basic.  Par¬ 
tial  key  look-up,  duplicate  keys,  multiple  key 
files  (read-only)  allowed.  Key  can  be  249 
bytes;  data  can  be  up  to  32K  bytes.  Disk- 
based  keys  minimize  memory  requirements 
for  large  files  (e.g.,  hard  disk).  Includes  key 
build  utility.  $69.95. 

Easy  Screen.  Allows  screen  design  by  draw¬ 
ing  right  on  the  video  screen.  Can  automati¬ 
cally  generate  a  Basic  program  to  allow  using 
the  screen  in  block  mode  for  updating  a 
keyed  file  (KSAM  product  included).  Also 
includes  hardcopy  listing  utilities.  $169.95. 

Quest  Research,  Inc. 

Huntsville,  AL 

Forth-32.  Complete  software  development 
system  allows  programming  over  the  entire 
megabyte  of  memory  addressable  by  the 
8086/8088  microprocessor.  Programs  can  be 
larger  than  64K.  Unique  segment-sensing 
compiler  keeps  track  of  CPU  memory  man¬ 
agement.  Accompanied  by  its  own  screen  ed¬ 
itor,  assembler,  structured  decompiler, 
symbolic  debugger,  and  graphics.  $195. 

8087  Floating  Point  Extension  for  Forth-32. 
Full  set  of  floating  point  operators,  transcen¬ 
dental  functions,  random  number  generator, 
full  error  checking.  Software  emulation  also 
available.  $95. 

Software  Floating  Point  Extension  for  Forth- 
32.  Full  set  of  floating  point  operators,  tran¬ 
scendental  functions,  random  number 
generator,  full  error  checking.  Full  emulation 
of  8087  floating  point  extension.  $95. 
DiskPak  Utilities.  Collection  of  disk  utilities 
for  the  pc  and  compatibles.  Allow  recovery 
of  files  on  disks  whose  directories  are  da¬ 
maged,  allow  recovery  of  erased  files,  dis¬ 
play  of  disk  sectors,  and  direct  editing  of  disk 
sectors.  $60. 

Big  Buf  Utility.  Increases  the  size  of  the  key¬ 
board  typeahead  buffer  to  a  maximum  of  132 
characters.  This  enables  the  user  to  type 
ahead  while  the  computer  is  performing  an¬ 
other  task.  $45. 

Edlin  Recovery  Utility.  Permits  recovery  of  a 
file  lost  during  an  Edlin  edit  session.  For  ex¬ 
ample,  if  the  disk  was  full  on  exit,  then  Edlin 
will  be  unable  to  save  the  file  onto  the  disk. 
$35. 

ReadiWare  Systems 
W.  Redding,  CT 

ReadiScope.  A  comprehensive  diagnostic 


program  that  analyzes  the  current  status  of  a 
disk  drive.  A  drive  can  be  tested  in  seconds 
without  removal.  Adjustments  to  head,  spin¬ 
dle,  hub  alignment,  and  rotational  speed  can 
be  made  in  minutes  without  special  equip¬ 
ment  or  skills.  Comes  complete  with  special 
diagnostic  disk.  $295. 

Rogue  River  Software 
Medford,  Oregon 

SPF/PC.  A  full-screen  text  editor  specifically 
written  to  take  advantage  of  advanced  fea¬ 
tures  on  the  pc.  It  looks  and  works  like  the 
IBM  mainframe  SPF  editor.  Display  can  be 
monochrome,  black  and  white,  or  color  if  us¬ 
ing  the  color  graphics  board.  SPF/PC  can  use 
over  700K  for  workspace  if  available.  SPF/ 
PC  is  written  entirely  in  machine  language 
for  speed  and  efficiency.  Requires  128K. 
$149.95. 

RoseSoft,  Inc. 

Seattle,  WA 

ProKey.  A  productivity  tool  with  uses  that 
range  from  the  elimination  of  repetitive  typ¬ 
ing  and  the  automation  of  routine  tasks  to 
the  customization  of  programs  and  the  crea¬ 
tion  of  turnkey  systems  without  any  pro¬ 
gramming.  It  gives  users  access  to  over  200 
function  keys  and  lets  them  change  the  posi¬ 
tions  of  keys.  $99.95. 

Satellite  Software  International 

Orem,  UT 

SSI  *Forth.  A  FIG-compatible  Forth  devel¬ 
opment  system  for  the  pc  and  other  sixteen- 
bit  (8086/88)  personal  computers.  Includes 
interpreter,  compiler,  decompiler,  editor,  text 
conversion  tools,  and  many  other  features. 
Source  code  is  included  to  facilitate  special¬ 
ized  development  efforts.  $95. 

P-Edit.  A  full-screen  text  editor  intended  spe¬ 
cifically  for  the  professional  programmer. 
Full  implementation  of  function  keys  and 
cursor  control  keys.  File  size  is  limited  only 
by  the  amount  of  space  on  your  disk.  $95. 

SimSoft,  Inc. 

Port  Huron,  MI 

The  Informer.  Designed  for  the  DOS  1.0  and 
1.1  users  who  want  to  know  exactly  what  is 
on  each  disk.  The  Informer  reads  the  disk's 
directory  and  reports  on  all  files  of  the  disk. 
Info  includes  file  names,  attributes,  date/ 
time  of  last  update,  where  files  reside  on  disk, 
and  its  size.  Totals  for  all  files  are  printed  or 
displayed.  $40. 

Programmers'  Tool  Kit.  Consists  of  forty-five 
Basic  routines  that  work  together  to  make 
programming  an  easier  task.  Routines  all  in¬ 
teract  with  a  screen /keyboard  manager.  This 
routine  performs  all  screen  displays  and  key¬ 
board  input  through  easy  programmer 
codes.  Keyed  input  is  edited  for  validity 
while  keying.  With  seventy-page  manual. 
$70. 


206 


softcilk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


The  shortest  distance  between 
tir  thoughts  and  the  printed  word. 

Your  thoughts  come  fester  than  your 
words.  Capturing  them  smoothly  and 
quickly  is  the  strength  of  Textra,  and  the 
secret  behind  its  success. 

Textra  blends  advanced  features  with  a 
simplified  design  that  makes  it  easier  to 
write  with  your  personal  computer.  And 
that’s  what  word  processing  is  all  about. 

Start  with  the  'on-line'  tutorial,  which 
has  been  called  everything  from  elegant 
to  excellent.  It's  the  finest  introduction 
a  software  program  ever  filmed.  Youll 
be  ready  to  write  in  record  time. 

And  Textra  will  be  ready  for  you.  Its 
highly  responsive  full  screen  editor 
helps  you  put  your  thoughts  on  the 
screen  swiftly.  Automatic  reformatting 
and  on-screen  bolding  and  underlining 
show  you  what  your  printed  text  will 
look  like  at  all  times.  You  can  even 
preview  your  pages  before  they're 
printed  ,  so  you  only  have  to  print 
them  once! 

Whether  you’re  searching  for  your  first 
word  processor,  or  feel  miserable  with 
the  one  you  have  now,  take  a  close  look 
at  Textra.  Ask  yo  ur  dealer  for  a  demon¬ 
stration  today. 

guaranteed  to  open  your  eye. 

Ann  Arbor  Software 

407  N*  Ann  Arbor,  MI  48104  Phone  (31 3)  769-9G8P 
Q 1983,  Ann  Arbor  Software,  All  rights  reserved. 


Utilities 


Smartware 
San  Francisco,  CA 

Revelation.  A  relational  database  manage¬ 
ment  system  with  roots  in  the  thirty-two-bit 
mini  world.  It  utilizes  the  8087  math  chip  to 
bring  new  levels  of  performance  and  capabi¬ 
lities  to  the  IBM  and  IBM  lookalike  ma¬ 
chines.  LAN  support  Ql.  $84. 

SoftCraft  Inc. 

Austin,  TX 

Btrieve.  A  record  management  system;  ap¬ 
plications  written  in  Basic,  Pascal,  Cobol,  or 
C  use  simple  subroutine  calls  to  store  and  re¬ 
trieve  records  by  key  value.  Supports  unlim¬ 
ited  number  of  records  and  up  to  eight  keys 
per  file.  Unique  data  integrity  features  pro¬ 
vided.  $145. 

SofTech  Microsystems,  Inc. 

San  Diego,  CA 

Edvance .  The  p-System  advanced,  menu- 
driven  screen  editor.  It  edits  files  of  unlimited 
size  and  features  nested  editing  (the  ability  to 
edit  more  than  one  file  at  a  time),  and  macro 
command  functions  (the  ability  to  assign 
many  functions  to  a  single  keystroke).  Com¬ 
bined  with  p-System  print  utility,  Edvance  is 
a  text  processor.  A  documentation  package  is 
included. 

p-System  Bootable  System .  A  fully  func¬ 
tional  operating  system  designed  for  text 
processing  and  application  execution.  Com¬ 
bined  with  a  p-System  language,  the  p-Sys¬ 
tem  Bootable  System  is  also  designed  as  a 
complete  application  development  system.  It 
includes  the  screen  editor,  file  manager,  appli¬ 
cation  services,  printing  and  configuration 
utilities,  command  menu,  library  manager, 
p-machine  emulator,  turtle  graphics  support, 
and  a  documentation  package.  $250. 

UCSD  Pascal  Compiler.  Features  the  de  facto 
Pascal  standard  for  microcomputers.  UCSD 
Pascal  is  a  fully  developed  language  with  ex¬ 
tensions  for  systems  development  and  com¬ 
mercial  applications  programming.  A 
documentation  package  is  included.  $375. 
The  Assemblers  Packages.  Native  code¬ 
generating  macro  cross-assemblers  that  al¬ 
low  you  to  write  assembly  language 
programs  on  the  host  machine  of  your  choice 
for  the  object  machine  of  your  choice.  The 
Assemblers  Package  consists  of  cross-assem¬ 
blers  for  the  Z-80,  8080,  PDP-11  /LSI-11, 
6502,  6800,  6809,  9900,  8086/8088,  and 
68000  microprocessors.  Requires  p-System. 
$200. 

Fortran-77  Compiler.  Features  an  up-to-date 
ANSI-77  subset  with  support  for  structured 
programming  and  improved  character  types. 
Fortran-77  is  fully  integrated  and  compatible 
with  UCSD  Pascal  and  Basic.  A  documenta- 


tion  package  is  included.  $375. 

KSAM.  Keyed  Sequential  Access  Method  is 
a  programming  package  that  can  be  incorpo¬ 
rated  into  application  programs.  It  supports 
sequential  and  keyed  retrieval  of  data  and  is 
designed  to  help  you  write  programs  that  re¬ 
quire  fast  access  to  information.  The  KSAM 
package  also  provides  utility  programs  for 
maintaining  a  KSAM-managed  database.  A 
documentation  package  is  included.  Requires 
p-System.  $200. 

Advanced  Development  Tool  Kit.  A  collec¬ 
tion  of  programming  tools  designed  for  use 
with  the  p-System  and  at  least  one  program¬ 
ming  language.  The  tool  kit  includes  the 
symbolic  debugger,  native  code  generator, 
assembler,  linker,  program  analysis  tools, 
and  a  documentation  package.  $150. 

Native  Code  Generators.  Programming  per¬ 
formance  tools  that  help  tune  programs  for 
maximum  speed  and  minimum  size  by 
translating  selected  portions  of  object  code 
program  into  the  processor's  fast-executing 
native  code.  Requires  p-System.  $150. 

Softsmith  Corporation 

San  Leandro,  CA 

Peeks  n  Pokes.  No  pc  can  keep  a  secret  from 
Peeks  'n  Pokes.  You  will  especially  appreciate 
it  if  you  are  developing  commercial  software. 
Over  fifty  programs  are  available  to  permit 
you  to  read,  interpret,  change  relevant  sys¬ 
tem  information.  $30. 

Character  Generator.  Create  new  and  exotic 
alphabets,  shapes,  or  virtually  anything  that 
you  want.  Character  Generator  saves  you 
hours  of  programming  time  because  you 
never  have  to  define  shapes  or  characters 
more  than  once.  Use  your  creations  over  and 
over  in  many  different  applications.  $24.95. 

Software  Connections,  Inc. 

Santa  Clara,  CA 

LAN:DataCore.  Multiuser  relational  data¬ 
base  development  tool  for  local  area  net¬ 
works.  Shortens  applications  program 
development  time  by  providing  a  set  of  pro¬ 
gram  procedures  to  handle  information  stor¬ 
age  and  retrieval.  Specifically  designed  to 
provide  concurrent  data  access  protection  for 
multicomputer  local  area  networks,  data  ac¬ 
cess  security  for  different  levels  of  users,  and 
large  capacity  (16M  database).  $645-$l,945. 

Soft  Warehouse 
Honolulu,  HI 

muLisp-83.  A  high-performance  Lisp  lan¬ 
guage  pseudo-code  compiler  and  interpreter. 
muStar,  the  accompanying  resident  display- 
oriented  editor  and  debugging  facility,  eases 
and  speeds  program  development.  Includes 
reference  manual,  tutorial,  a  library  of  utility 
functions,  and  implementations  of  several 
game  programs,  $250. 


Software  Labs 
Sunnyvale,  CA 

Pascal/MT  -F  Utilities.  Seventy  assembly 
language  routines  for  Pascal/MT+  pro¬ 
grams.  They  control  the  screen,  graphics, 
music,  printers,  RS-232  ports,  lightpen,  joy¬ 
stick,  and  mouse.  SIGGRAPH  core's  setwin- 
dow,  setviewport,  and  clipping,  drawing 
circle/ellipse/pie/line,  graphics  store/re¬ 
trieve,  animation,  menu  selectipn,  and  full¬ 
screen  input  are  included.  $119. 

Fortran  Utilities.  Seventy  assembly  language 
routines  for  DOS  Fortran  programs.  They 
control  the  screen,  graphics,  music,  printers, 
RS-232  ports,  lightpen,  joystick,  and  mouse. 
SIGGRAPH  core's  setwindow,  setviewport, 
and  clipping,  drawing  circle/ellipse/pie/line, 
graphics  store/ retrieve,  animation,  menu  se¬ 
lection,  and  full-screen  input  are  included. 
$119. 

C  Utilities.  Seventy  assembly  language  rou¬ 
tines  for  Lattice  C  (Microsoft  C)  programs. 
They  control  the  screen,  graphics,  music, 
printers,  RS-232  ports,  lightpen,  joystick, 
and  mouse.  SIGGRAPH  core's  setwindow, 
setviewport,  and  clipping,  drawing  circle/el- 
Iipse/pie/line,  graphics  store /retrieve,  ani¬ 
mation,  menu  selection,  and  full-screen  input 
are  included.  $119. 

Pascal  Utilities.  Seventy  assembly  language 
routines  for  IBM  DOS  Pascal  programs. 
They  control  the  screen,  graphics,  music, 
printers,  RS-232  ports,  lightpen,  joystick, 
and  mouse.  SIGGRAPH  core's  setwindow, 
setviewport,  and  clipping,  drawing  circle/el¬ 
lipse/pie/line,  graphics  store /retrieve,  ani¬ 
mation,  menu  selection,  and  full-screen  input 
are  included.  $119. 

Software  Technology  for 
Computers,  Inc. 

Newton,  MA 

The  Creator.  An  applications  designer  which 
produces  finished  Basic  applications  pro¬ 
grams  in  the  following  categories:  word 
processing,  financial  planning,  general 
ledger,  database,  mailing  list,  merge  letter, 
accounts  receivable,  budgets,  bar  charts, 
checkbook,  invoicing,  music  composition, 
and  appointments.  Create  versatile  customi¬ 
zable  applications  by  simply  answering  Eng¬ 
lish  questions.  $300. 

Solutions,  Inc. 

Montpelier,  VT 

Vis/ Bridge/ Report.  Will  enhance  the  print¬ 
ing  capability  of  VisiCalc.  It  allows  the  user 
to  print  variable  width  columns,  align  deci¬ 
mal  points,  center,  left  or  right  justify  num¬ 
bers  within  a  column,  and  automatically 
segment  reports  too  wide  or  long  for  one 
page.  $79. 

Vis /Bridge/ Sort.  Will  sort  the  rows  or  col¬ 
umns  of  a  VisiCalc  spreadsheet.  Using  up  to 


208 


softcilk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


Proven  Performance! 


. .  *  and  reliability  is  what  you  can 
depend  on  from  TG  Products’ 
game  controls.  The  combination  of 
quality  components  and  unique 
features  produce  the  precision  con¬ 
trol  you  need  for  exerting  game 
play  on  personal  computers. 
(Compatible  with  Apple  li,  Apple  lie 
and  IBM  PC)* 


Our  confidence  in  the  perform¬ 
ance  of  the  game  controllers  has 
allowed  us  to  offer  a  limited  5ive 
year  warranty  for  every  computer 
accessory  we  manufacture.  We 
guarantee  five  years  of  trouble-free 
fun  and  excitement  with  every  TG 
game  controller  you  purchase. 

TRACK  BALL  is  an  omni-directional 
guidance  system  for  quick  response  to 
rapid  movement  commands  and  very 
conducive  for  use  with  graphics  and 
educational  software  applications. 


JOYSTICK  has  completely  linear  oper¬ 
ation,  exclusive  trim  adjustments  for 
both  axes  and  a  self-centering  feature 
you  may  disengage  at  will* 


GAME  PADDLES  are  styled  to  fit  the 
contours  of  the  hand  for  smoother  si¬ 
multaneous  movement  and  firing  ac¬ 
tion.  They  also  feature  a  switchable  fir¬ 
ing  button  for  right  or  left  handed  play. 


These  game  controls  are  available 
at  your  local  dealer  or  contact: 

TG  Products 
1 104  Summit  Ave, 

Suite  I  \  0 

Piano.  Texas  75074 


(214)  424-8568 


Hi 

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Utilities 


four  secondary  sorts  to  break  ties,  it  will  sort 
alphabetically  or  numerically  and  in  either 
ascending  or  descending  order.  $89. 

SolveWare 
Redondo  Beach,  CA 
SeuenWare.  A  complete  package  for  addition 
of  the  Intel  8087  Numeric  Coprocessor  to  the 
pc.  It  includes  comprehensive  8087  diagnos¬ 
tics,  a  unique  8087  demonstration /bench¬ 
marking  program,  and  a  macro  library  that 
adds  the  8087  instruction  set  (with  full  error- 
checking)  to  the  IBM  Macro  Assembler.  Soft¬ 
ware,  $109.  With  8087  chip,  $309. 

I/O  87.  A  package  of  I/O  subroutines  that 
greatly  aid  software  development  for  the  In¬ 
tel  8087  Coprocessor.  Four  routines  are  pro¬ 
vided:  conversion  of  Basic  variables  to  /from 
8087  format,  keyboard  input  to  8087,  self- 
formatting  output,  and  formatted  output. 
An  example  program  is  also  included.  $24.95. 

Spectrum  Software 
Sunnyvale,  CA 

Micrologic.  General  purpose  electronic  logic 
design  and  simulation  system.  Using  a  built- 
in  graphics  design  module,  a  user  sketches 
logic  diagrams  directly  on  the  screen.  A 
Netlist  suitable  for  simulation  is  created  auto¬ 
matically  from  the  user's  drawing.  Once  the 
Netlist  is  prepared,  a  user  may  perform  tim¬ 
ing/state  simulation  on  the  Network,  repre¬ 
sented  by  the  Netlist.  The  program  handles 
Networks  of  up  to  2,000  gates.  $450. 

Starside  Engineering 
Rochester,  NY 

Compress.  A  file  compression /decompres¬ 
sion  utility  for  reducing  the  size  of  DOS  files. 
ASCII  text  files  compress  to  60  percent  of 
original  size.  Graphics  screen  files  compress 
to  25  percent  of  original  size.  All  machine 
code  and  very  fast.  Compatible  with  CP/M's 
SQ/USQ  utilities.  $22.95,  $3  shipping/han¬ 
dling. 

StratCom  Systems,  Inc. 

San  Diego,  CA 

PC-Xtract.  A  software  utility  for  Fortran 
programmers  that  scans  a  single  (and  poten¬ 
tially  large)  program  source-code  file  and  cre¬ 
ates  individual  source-code  files  of  the  main 
program  and  each  subroutine,  function,  and 
blockdata — plus  an  alphabetized  batch  file 
containing  the  name  of  each  routine  that  has 
been  extracted  for  subsequent  single-com¬ 
mand  compilation.  $49. 

STSC,  Inc. 

Rockville,  MD 

APL  *Plus/PC  System.  An  extended  APL 
language  for  the  pc.  The  system  offers  all 


APL  language  primitive  functions  and  opera¬ 
tors,  a  simple  terminal  mode  using  either  the 
APL  or  the  ASCII  character  set,  and  a  smart 
terminal  mode  for  customized  intelligent  ma¬ 
chine  interaction.  Also  includes  graphics 
primitives  for  the  development  of  business 
and  free-form  graphics  displays,  a  full-screen 
editor,  page  scrolling,  a  keyword  version  for 
English-like  use  of  APL,  an  on-line  help  facil¬ 
ity,  and  the  capability  to  call  DOS  commands 
from  APL  in  order  to  integrate  non-APL  pro¬ 
grams  and  packages.  $595. 

APL  -kPLUS/PC  Financial  and  Statistical  Li¬ 
brary.  Contains  more  than  two  hundred  rou¬ 
tines  to  perform  financial  calculations, 
forecast  time  series,  compute  statistical  mea¬ 
sures,  and  generate  probability  distribution 
data.  Routines  may  be  used  on  a  standalone 
basis  or  may  be  integrated  into  other  APL- 
*PLUS  applications  on  the  pc.  $275. 

SuperSoft,  Inc. 

Champaign,  IL 

SuperSoft  Fortran .  ANSI-66  standard  with 
extensions.  The  compiler  supports  many  ad¬ 
vanced  features  including  complex  arithme¬ 
tic,  character  variables,  and  functions. 
Recursive  subroutines  with  static  variables 
are  supported.  Also  available  is  Ratfor,  a  pre¬ 
processor  that  compiles  to  Fortran,  allowing 
the  user  to  write  structured  code  while  retain¬ 
ing  the  benefits  of  Fortran.  Ratfor  also  adds 
some  features  of  Fortran  77.  Requires  128K 
memory  and  two  disk  drives.  Fortran,  $425; 
Ratfor,  $100;  8087  support,  $50. 

SuperSoft  C.  Supports  most  features  of  Unix 
7  C  and  produces  highly  optimized  code, 
making  it  possible  to  avoid  assembly  lan¬ 
guage  coding  for  most  tasks.  C  is  a  multipass 
compiler.  The  intermediate  code  is  optimized 
and  assembly  code  is  output  to  disk  file.  The 
optimizer  typically  results  in  40  percent  code 
reduction  and  can  be  turned  off  for  faster 
compilation  if  desired.  Double  floating  point 
(including  trigonometric  functions)  are  pro¬ 
vided,  as  well  as  long  integer  functions.  CP/ 
M-86  and  MS-DOS,  $500. 

SuperSoft  Basic.  Compatible  with  Microsoft 
Basic  and  follows  the  ANSI  standard.  BCD 
math  routines  are  included  to  prevent  deci¬ 
mal  round-off  errors,  and  IEEE  floating  point 
is  available  as  an  option. SuperSoft  Basic  is  a 
true  native  code  compiler,  not  an  intermedi¬ 
ate  code  interpreter.  It  is  a  superset  of  stand¬ 
ard  Basic,  including  important  features  like 
four  variable  types  (integer,  string,  and  single 
and  double  precisioning  floating  point),  long 
variable  name,  and  print  using.  128K  re¬ 
quired.  $300. 

SysteMathica 
Pittsburgh,  PA 

PC-DOSX.  Speed  up  disk  access  and  overall 
execution  time  by  a  factor  of  five  to  ten  times 
without  any  hardware  modifications.  User- 


m 

friendly  self-installed  optimizing  disk  cache 
with  user-selectable  cache  memory  address¬ 
ing.  $99. 

Vandata 
Seattle,  WA 

C86  C  Compiler,  Vandata  distributes  Com¬ 
puter  Innovations'  C86  C  Compiler.  C86  is  a 
full  implementation  of  C  as  defined  by 
Kemighan  and  Ritchie's  The  C  Programming 
Language .  The  library  conforms  to  UNIX  7, 
and  the  source  to  the  library  is  included.  No 
royalty  payments  are  required.  $389. 

Tall  Tree  Systems 
Palo  Alto,  CA 

Jetdrive.  An  installable  device  driver  that  cre¬ 
ates  an  electronic  disk  for  those  who  have 
more  than  128K  (up  to  2.5  megabytes).  Re¬ 
stores  contents  of  electronic  disk  after  ctrl- 
alt-del.  Included  is  ]et,  a  high-speed  file 
transfer  program  that  is  ten  times  faster  than 
the  utilities  supplied  with  operating  systems 
for  dump /restore  contents  of  hard  disk.  De¬ 
livered  with  source  code.  For  DOS  2.0.  $40. 
]Format.  Provides  an  electronic  disk  for  any 
system  with  128K  or  more  (up  to  2.5  mega¬ 
bytes).  A  formatting  routine  for  eight  and  ten 
sectors,  on  simple  dual  and  quad  drives.  Also 
allows  8"  drives  and  most  hard  disks.  A  print 
spooler  and  a  high-speed  file  transfer  pro¬ 
gram  are  also  included.  For  DOS  1.1.  $60. 
Windrive.  Available  for  most  Winchester 
hard  disk  systems.  Source  code  permits  ad¬ 
aptation  and  customization.  All  drives  will 
run  under  DOS  1.1  with  Windrive.  Deliv¬ 
ered  with  source  code.  $40. 

JSpool.  Redirectable  programmable  spooler 
with  arbitrary  size  buffer  using  time-slice  or 
interrupt  scheduling.  Supports  both  parallel 
and  serial  ports  with  or  without  Xon/Xoff 
protocol.  Delivered  with  source  code.  $40. 

Vertex  Systems 
Los  Angeles,  CA 

Keyswapper.  Total  keyboard  control  with 
macro  capabilities.  Exchange  or  delete  key 
functions  to  customize  your  pc  keyboard. 
Toggle  Dvorak  keyboard  layout  on  or  off. 
Use  cursors  and  numeric  keypad  simultane¬ 
ously.  Num  lock/ caps  lock  beep  signals  with 
activation.  Forty  macros  with  version  1.4, 
$44.95.  300  macros  with  version  2.0,  $79.95. 
Xeno-Copy  **.  Read  and  write  dozens  of 
different  disk  formats  in  your  pc  or  pc-com- 
patible  computer  with  no  modems,  serial 
links,  or  other  hardware.  Simply  place  the 
foreign  diskette  in  your  pc's  drive  and  trans¬ 
fer  any  file  instantly.  Handles  over  forty  for¬ 
mats,  including  CP/M,  CP/M-86,  TRS-DOS 
and  p-System.  $149.50. 

SoftSpool  The  pc  runs  at  98  percent  of  regu¬ 
lar  speed  with  Softspool  RAM  print  spooler. 
You  can  purge  all  or  part  of  the  buffer.  Paral¬ 
lel  or  serial,  DOS  1.1  or  2.0.  $44.95. 


zio 


softalk 


MiXflWMfl  MW 


Word  Processing 


Alternative  Software,  Inc, 

Cherry  Hill,  NJ 

IBM  Word  Processing  and  IBM  Business 
Mass  Mailer.  Maintains,  selectively  accesses, 
sorts,  merges,  splits  mailing  list  files,  and 
prints  out  labels,  envelopes,  mailing  lists, 
and  links  to  WordStar/ MailMerge  for  form 
letters.  User-changeable  menus  and  screens. 
Eleven  fields  and  fourteen  category  codes/  re¬ 
cord,  Menu -driven,  $199.95. 

Ann  Arbor  Software 
Ann  Arbor,  Ml 

Textra.  Features  full-screen  editing,  modeless 
insert  and  delete,  overstrike,  undelete, 
search,  replace,  copy,  move,  merge,  exten¬ 
sive  reformatting  including  automatic  refor¬ 
matting,  on-screen  boldfacing  and 
underlining,  full  printing,  and  page  preview 
mode.  Documentation  includes  a  135-page 
manual  and  on-line  tutorial,  $95, 

Beaman  Porter;  Inc. 

Harrison,  NY 

Power  Text  and  Power  Spell  A  sophisticated 
automatic  word  processing  system  for  the  pc, 
XT,  and  IBM  lookalikes.  Automatically 
produces  headers,  footers,  dosings,  cover 
pages,  and  tables  of  contents.  True  propor¬ 
tional  spacing.  Supports  all  printers.  Power 
Spell  is  a  spelling  checker  Power  Text ,  $399. 
Power  Spelt  $125. 

Bruce  &  James  Program  Publishers/ 
Inc, 

Dublin,  OH 

Wordvision.  A  personal  writing  tool  devel¬ 
oped  for  new  generation  computers.  De¬ 


signed  for  ease  of  use  at  an  affordable  price. 
Features  include  eleven  kinds  of  delete  (plus 
undelete),  move  or  copy  marked  sections, 
capitalize  or  uncapitalize,  swap,  find  and.  re¬ 
place,  two  key  phrases,  margins,  tabs,  un¬ 
derline,  boldface,  single  and  double  space, 
centering,  and  super-  and  subscript,  $49.95, 

Chang  Laboratories/  Inc. 

San  Jose,  CA 

MemoPtan.  A  word  processor  with  the  abil¬ 
ity  to  work  with  five  documents  concur¬ 
rently.  Automatically  saves  data  and  can 
immediately  recover  deleted  data.  It  also  fea¬ 
tures  a  split  screen  for  working  with  two  doc¬ 
uments  simultaneously.  Operating  systems: 
CP/M,  CP/M-06,  MP/M,  MS-DOS,  PC- 
DOS,  $295, 

DocuPlan ,  A  document  formatter  for  com¬ 
plex  documents  such  as  manuscripts,  techni¬ 
cal  documentation,  legal  agreements. 
Built-in  features:  automatic  table  of  contents, 
footnoting,  indexing,  and  legal  cross-refer¬ 
ence.  Operating  system:  CP/M,  CP/M-86, 
MP/M,  MP/M-86,  MS-DOS,  PGDOS. 
5295, 

Datatek,  Inc. 

Clearwater,  FL 

Datatext.  Similar  to  dedicated  word  process¬ 
ing  systems.  Features  include  proportional 
spacing  with  justification  and  ability  to 
merge  dBase  1]  documents.  $450, 

Digital  Marketing  Corp. 

Walnut  Creek,  CA 

Bibliography ,  Compares  citations  in  a  manu¬ 
script  with  entries  on  a  card  catalogue  and 


constructs  a  bibliography  of  all  entries  cited. 
Entries  are  added  to  the  catalogue  using  a  text 
editor.  Each  catalogue  entry  has  a  keyname 
followed  by  bibliographic  information.  En¬ 
tries  may  be  of  any  length  and  format.  It  will 
work  with  most  word  processors  including 
WordStar,  Spellbinder,  PeachText,  and  Su¬ 
perwriter.  $125. 

Grammatik ,  Detects  grammatical  errors  as 
well  as  other  common  mistakes  not  found  by 
most  spelling  checkers.  The  Granmmtik  dic¬ 
tionary  contains  over  500  wordy  or  misused 
phrases  and  100  gender-specific  terms,  $75. 
Writers  Pack ,  A  collection  of  five  programs 
for  the  WordStar  user:  Proofreader,  Gram¬ 
matik ,  Footnote ,  Bibliography,  and  Docu- 
mate/PIus.  One  program  guide  details  all  the 
programs.  $295. 

Distributed  Software  Systems,  Inc. 
Northbrook,  IL 

Quick-Text.  A  fully  integrated,  full  screen, 
menu-oriented  word  processor  and  text  edi¬ 
tor  for  the  casual  or  business  user.  Provides 
all  the  features  required  to  create,  edit,  and 
print  documents  or  files  using  either  Quiric- 
Text  documents  or  standard  DOS  files.  $55. 
Quick- Text  //.  A  fully  integrated,  full  screen, 
menu-oriented  word  processor  and  text  edi¬ 
tor.  The  system  provides  all  the  features  re¬ 
quired  to  create,  edit,  and  print  documents 
and  files;  plus  it  includes  wide  document  sup¬ 
port,  mail  merge,  DOS  paths,  and  print  from 
edit.  $70. 

Einstein  Software 
Los  Angeles,  CA 

EinsteinSpeller  Detects  misspelled  words. 


for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  19S3 


211 


LISP 

FOR  THE 
IBM  PERSONAL 


THE  PREMIER  LANGUAGE 
OF  ARTIFICIAL 
INTELLIGENCE  FOR 
YOUR  IBM  PC. 


I  DATATYPES 

Lists  and  Symbols 
Unlimited  Precision  Integers 
Floating  Point  Numbers 
Character  Strings 
Multidimensional  Arrays 
Files 

Machine  Language  Code 

MEMORY  MANAGEMENT 

Full  Memory  Space  Supported 
Dynamic  Allocation 
Compacting  Garbage  Collector 

FUNCTION  TYPES 

EXPR/FEXPR/MACRO 
Machine  Language  Primitives 
Over  190  Primitive  Functions 

10  SUPPORT 

Multiple  Display  Windows 
Cursor  Control 
All  Function  Keys  Supported 
Read  and  Splice  Macros 
Disk  Files 

POWERFUL  ERROR  RECOVERY 
8087  SUPPORT 
COLOR  GRAPHICS 

LISP  LIBRARY 

Structured  Programming  Macros 
Editor  and  Formatter 
Package  Support 
Debugging  Functions 
.OBJ  File  Loader 

RUNS  UNDER  PC-DOS  1.1  or  2.0 


IQLISP 


5V4"  Diskette 
and  Manual  _ 
Manual  Only  _ 


$175.00 
$  30.00 


J  q  Integral  Quality 

P.O.Box  31970 

Seattle,  Washington  98103-0070 
(206)  527-2918 

Washington  State  residents  add  sales  tax. 
VISA  and  MASTERCARD  accepted. 
Shipping  included  for  prepaid  orders. 


Word  Processing 


Also  finds  words  that  should  be  capitalized 
and  hyphenated,  suggests  alternate  spellings, 
and  knows  common  typographical  errors. 
The  dictionary  contains  frequently  used 
words,  including  proper  names  and  places, 
and  can  be  expanded  easily  to  accommodate 
vocabulary.  $149.95. 

EinsteinWriter.  A  word  processor.  Human- 
factors  engineering  allows  the  computer  to 
assist  user  thought  processes  rather  than 
forcing  the  user  to  conform  to  complex  ma¬ 
chinery.  Split-screen  techniques  enable  user 
to  compose  documents  more  easily.  $300. 
Einstein  Letter.  Offers  a  practical  shortcut  in 
correspondence.  Several  model  letters  in  a 
variety  of  categories  to  suit  every  business 
and  personal  application  are  contained  in 
the  easy-to-use  menu-driven  format.  Split¬ 
screen  techniques  allow  the  user  to  compose 
from  the  model  letter  using  the  contents  out¬ 
line  of  the  letters  components  as  a  guide. 
$49.95  to  $149.95. 

Emerging  Technology 
Boulder,  CO 

Edix  and  Wordix.  High  performance  word 
processor  featuring  multiple  screen  win¬ 
dows,  multiple  text  buffers,  searching  and 
translating,  keystroke  macros,  on-line  help, 
multicolumn  layout,  automatic  footnotes, 
section  numbering,  table  of  contents,  and 
form  letter  mailing-list  generation.  Also 
available  with  Spellix  and  Indix.  $390. 

Friendly  Soft,  Inc. 

Arlington,  TX 

Friendly  Writer  with  Friendly  Speller  The  best 
little  letter  writer  you  ever  learned  to  use  in 
ten  minutes,  and  the  only  word  processor  in 
its  price  range  that  hasaSO, 000- word  diction¬ 
ary/spelling  checker.  Features  single  key¬ 
stroke  command  and  fast  performance. 
$69.95. 

Harper  Business  Systems 
Bellevue,  WA 

Script.  Works  much  like  an  office  typewriter, 
maintaining  close  correspondence  between 
the  screen  and  printed  text.  Format  controls 
are  supported  by  menus.  Script  uses  many 
type  styles.  Features  include  page  number¬ 
ing,  headings,  justified  printing,  single  keys 
for  reforming  paragraphs,  centering  text, 
pause/resume,  and  fixing  inset  margins. 
$47.50. 

Information  Unlimited  Software 

Sausalito,  CA 

EasyWriter  II.  A  word  processing  system 
that  offers  standalone  word  processing  func¬ 
tions,  features  eighty-column  display,  and 
stores  eighty  pages  of  double-spaced  text  on  a 


I  single  disk.  Easy  Speller  is  a  spelling-checking 
for  files  created  with  EasyWriter  II  and  other 
DOS  files.  It  recognizes  over  88,000  words 
and  allows  user  to  check  documents  within 
the  EasyWriter  II  editor.  Special  Webster  s  Le¬ 
gal  and  Medical  Spellers  are  available.  Easy¬ 
Writer  II,  $350.  EasySpeller,  $225. 

International  Software  Alliance 

Santa  Barbara,  CA 

ProScript  Text  Formatter.  Combine  Pro- 
Script  Text  Formatter  with  a  text  editor  such 
as  Edlin,  Vedit ,  or  P-Mate,  and  you  have  the 
capabilities  of  a  full-blown  word  processor! 
Twenty-nine  print  directives  give  you  the 
control  you  need  to  produce  professional¬ 
looking  documents  with  minimum  effort. 
Automatic  section  and  paragraph  numbering 
and  table  of  contents  generation  makes  it 
ideal  for  producing  technical  manuals.  $75. 

Life  tree  Software,  Inc. 

Monterey,  CA 

Volkswriter  1.2.  On-screen  tutorials,  full 
screen  editing,  on-screen  formatting,  stan¬ 
dard  ASCII  files,  word  processsing,  and  pro¬ 
gram  editing.  $195. 

Volkswriter  International  Edition.  Twenty 
function  keys,  on-screen  tutorials,  on-screen 
format,  multilingual  word  processing,  Ger¬ 
man,  French,  Spanish,  Italian,  scientific,  and 
math  characters.  $225. 

Megahaus  Corp. 

San  Diego,  CA 

MegaWriter  An  easy-to-use  yet  powerful 
word  processing  system.  Part  of  a  complete 
family  of  programs,  Mega  Writer  comes  com¬ 
plete  with  mailing  list  merging  and  is  a  so¬ 
phisticated  document  filing  system.  $99.95. 
MegaSpell.  A  spelling  checker  designed  to  be 
used  with  MegaWriter.  MegaSpell  ignores 
MegaWriter  formatting  commands,  and 
comes  with  a  40,000-word  dictionary  ex¬ 
pandable  to  50,000  words.  $99.95. 

Micro  Architect  Inc. 

Burlington,  MA 

Word-IV  Features  automatic  line  filling;  page 
size,  line  width,  and  indent;  vertical  spacing 
control;  right  margin  justification;  and  cen¬ 
tering  control.  $58. 

Microsoft  Corp. 

Bellevue,  WA 

Microsoft  Word.  Includes  such  functional 
features  as  multiple  windows;  special  set  of 
preformatted  style  sheets;  capabilities  for 
footnotes,  subscripts,  and  superscripts;  glos¬ 
sary  buffers;  multiple  fonts  and  formats;  and 
horizontal  scroll  for  text  wider  than  the 
screen.  Provision  for  an  electronic  mouse  for 
pointing  and  command  execution,  an  undo 
command,  advanced  wordwrap,  direct  for¬ 
matting  capabilities,  and  extensive,  context- 


softalk 


Word  Processing 


sensitive  on-line  help  system.  $375  alone. 
With  Microsoft  mouse,  $475. 

Muse  Software 
Baltimore,  MD 

Super-Text  Professional  Advanced  capabili¬ 
ties  include  eighty-column  screen  display  on¬ 
screen  help  menus,  on-screen  formatting, 
split  screen,  and  easy-to-use  text  editing  fea¬ 
tures.  $99. 

Newburyport  Computer  Associates, 
Inc. 

Newburyport  MA 

Swift.  Word  processor  with  on-screen  merge, 
bold,  underline,  centering,  mathematical 
equations,  foreign  characters,  and  automatic 
reformatting.  Has  no  embedded  commands, 
allows  unlimited  document  size,  simultane¬ 
ous  printing,  user-definable  characters,  and 
more.  Limited  time  offer.  $149. 

Norell  Data  Systems 
Los  Angeles,  CA 

Easyedit.  A  two-dimensional,  cursor-based, 
full-screen  editor  that  is  easy  to  learn  and  use. 


Function  keys  are  used  to  perform  simple  ed¬ 
iting  operations,  which  are  immediately 
reflected  in  the  file  being  edited.  Bidirectional 
full  search  and  replace  (with  prompting, 
global,  and  wild  card);  word  wraparound 
(adjustable  left  and  right  margins);  line  cut 
and  paste;  auto  indentation;  block  copy  and 
move;  definable  macro  function  keys;  boiler 
plates  and  side  files;  split  screen  editing  and 
dual-file  editing;  virtuaj  file  size.  Built-in  help 
menus.  $79.95. 

Easy  proof.  A  spelling  error  detection  and 
marking  program  that  is  compatible  with 
documents  produced  by  most  text  editors 
and  word  processing  systems.  Reads  a  docu¬ 
ment  from  a  disk  file  and  presents  you  with  a 
list  of  words  it  thinks  are  incorrect.  For  each 
word,  you  can  decide  whether  to  pass  it,  add 
it  to  the  dictionary,  or  mark  it  as  an  error  in 
the  document.  After  marking  the  errors,  find 
and  correct  the  errors  using  your  text  editor 
or  word  processor.  Recognizes  more  than 
50,000  English  words.  $49.95. 

Easytext.  Neatly  formats  documents  into 
pages  with  space  at  the  top  and  bottom,  even 
margins,  specified  headings,  and  page  num¬ 
bers.  It  will  underline,  embolden,  center,  hy¬ 
phenate,  indent,  and  overstrike  specified 
words  and  phrases.  Will  create  a  table  of  con¬ 
tents  and  help  create  an  index.  Form  letters, 


envelopes,  and  mailing  labels  can  be  created. 
$79.95. 

Easyword.  Comprises  three  processing  pro¬ 
grams—  EasyEdit  text  editor,  Easyproof  spell¬ 
ing  checker,  and  Easytext  format  processor. 
$149.95. 

Oak  Tree  Computing,  Inc. 

Arcadia,  CA 

Good-Words.  Third-generation  word  proc¬ 
essor.  Includes  help  screens,  complete  func¬ 
tion  keys,  tutorial.  Logical,  easily 
remembered  commands,  on-screen  remind¬ 
ers.  Printer  and  format  functions  include 
proportional  spacing,  complete  justification, 
centering,  double  height,  width,  ten  fonts, 
much  more.  XT  version,  $149.95.  PC  ver¬ 
sion,  $99.95. 

Oasis  Systems 
San  Diego,  CA 

The  Word  Plus .  Spelling  checker  with 
45,000+  word  dictionary,  in-context  view¬ 
ing,  lookup,  and  correction.  Package  in¬ 
cludes  utilities  for  word  lists,  anagrams, 
solving  crosswords,  and  much  more.  Works 
with  most  word  processors.  Available  for 
CP/M-86  and  MS-DOS  (including  2.0). 
$150. 

Punctuation  and  Style.  Punctuation  check- 


BILLING  SYSTEMS  FOR  MEDICAL  PRACTICES 


•  Up  to  five  practitioners 

•  Multiple  computer  stations 

•  Over  ten  thousand  accounts 

•  Insurance  billing 

•  Support  &  training 

•  Under  $10,000  for  full  system 


Winchester  Disk  Systems  for  the 

IBM  PERSONAL  COMPUTER! 


PROFESSIONAL  COMPUTER  STORE 
(213)  790-9054 

650  Foothill  Boulevard 
La  Canada,  CA  91011 


for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


IMAGINE  WHAT  HE 
MIGHT  HAVE  DONE 

IMAGINE  WHAT 
YOU  MIGHT  DO 


JL.YOU  USE  YOUR  OWN 
^  SPREADSHEET!  The  reason 
we  think  you  will  find 
BUSI*MATH™  easy  is  that  you 
will  use  your  1*2-3™,  VisiCalc™,  or 
SuperCalc™.  You  will  not  have  to 
learn  a  new  manual. 


JL,  NO  EXPERIENCE 
**  NECESSARY!  At  its  first 
level  BUSI*MATH™  will  give  you 
answers.  Answers  to  financial  pro¬ 
blems  such  as  loans  and  annuities. 
You  enter  the  data  and 
BU SI* MATH™  gives  you  an 
answer  in  seconds.  Over  80  for¬ 
mulas  solve  the  time  value  of 
money  calculations  including  yield 
to  maturity,  balloons,  and 
graduated  payments. 


JL  NEXT  come  the  side-by-side 
**  comparisons,  and  then  the 
amortization  schedules  and  tables. 


jr,  THEN  the  most  powerful 
**  feature  available  to  spread¬ 
sheet  programs,  the  ability  to  load 
all  of  the  algebra  of  finance  direct¬ 
ly  to  a  place  in  your  template, 
model  or  report,  where  you  need  it, 
when  you  need  it.  And,  we  will 
show  you  how  to  do  it. 

JL.  YOU  do  have  available  the 
**  computer  which  Dr.  Einstein 
did  not.  And  you  can  do  some 
things  you  never  thought  you 
could  if  you  will  just  let  us  show 
you  how. 


Box  361,  155  State  Street 
Ripon,  Wisconsin  54971 
414/748-3422 


Word  Processing 


ing  and  writing  improvement  program. 
Finds  twenty-five  different  punctuation  er¬ 
rors,  including  unbalanced  toggle  characters 
(for  boldface  and  underline).  Marks  errors 
where  they  occur.  Finds  over  700  words  and 
phrases  to  be  avoided  and  suggests  replace¬ 
ments.  Detects  passive  voice.  Works  with 
most  word  processors.  Available  for  CP/M- 
86  and  MS-DOS  (including  2.0),  $125. 

Pacific  Software  Manufacturing  Co. 
Berkeley,  CA 

Sequitur.  Integrates  a  relational  database 
management  system  and  word  processor,  al¬ 
lowing  interactive  data  editing.  Provides  a 
unique  visual  method  of  specifying  selec¬ 
tions,  sorts,  and  joins  that  allow  manipula¬ 
tion  without  programming.  Includes  a  form 
generator  with  complete  merging  capabilities 
for  form  letters  and  mailing  labels,  along 
with  a  report  generator.  $795. 

Palantir,  Inc. 

Houston,  TX 

Palantir.  Provides  word  processing  with  mul¬ 
tiple  stored  document  formats,  keystroke 
glossary,  quick  pagination,  dedicated  func¬ 
tion  keys,  multiple  headers/footers,  exten¬ 
sive  help  screens.  Includes  a  mailout  feature 
using  conditionals,  keyboard  data  entry,  and 
floating  point  math.  $450. 

Persyst 
Irvine,  CA 

PC/Edit.  A  full-screen  editor  that  offers  a 
wide  range  of  powerful  features  including 
forty  screen  commands,  horizontal  and  ver¬ 
tical  scrolling,  global  search  and  replace,  and 
on-line  help  menu.  $98. 

ReadiWare 
West  Redding,  CT 

ReadiWriter.  A  powerful  word  formatter 
based  on  the  GML  and  Script  languages  used 
on  large  computers.  Automatically  creates 
footnotes,  tables  of  contents,  lists,  and  page 
numbers.  Indexes  are  easily  created  and 
maintained.  Printer  support  includes  propor¬ 
tional  spacing,  underlining,  italics,  boldface, 
and  sub/superscripts.  $125. 

Satellite  Software  International 
Orem,  UT 

WordPerfect.  A  fully  featured  word  process¬ 
ing  system.  Special  features  such  as  speller, 
math,  mailmerge,  macros,  and  footnotes  are 
completely  integrated  for  smooth  efficiency. 
All  features  are  designed  to  be  automatic  and 
effortless.  Creating,  editing,  and  printing  are 
done  within  the  same  mode.  $495. 

Personal  WordPerfect.  Includes  the  same 
powerful  editing  capabilities  as  WordPerfect, 
but  without  such  advanced  features  as  the 
speller,  mailmerge,  footnotes,  macros,  and 


math.  Personal  WordPerfect  files  are  com¬ 
patible  with  WordPerfect.  $195. 

Select  Information  Systems 
Kentfield,  CA 

Select.  A  menu-driven,  full-format  word 
processor  with  single-key  commands,  a 
built-in  expandable  spelling  checker,  and  a 
merge  program  for  merging  information  into 
bills,  forms,  and  mailing  lists.  Teach,  Selects 
on-screen  tutorial,  guides  the  user  step-by- 
step  through  a  series  of  lessons.  $247. 

Software  Products  International, 

Inc. 

San  Diego,  CA 

Word  Processing  Program.  Allows  easy  crea¬ 
tion  and  editing  of  text  files.  In  addition  to 
normal  insert,  delete,  and  exchange  com¬ 
mands,  there  are  commands  such  as  search, 
search  and  replace,  proportional  spacing 
with  justification,  copy  text  from  external 
files  while  viewing  original  file,  and  virtual 
memory. 

Software  Publishing  Corp. 

Mountain  View,  CA 
PFS:  Write.  An  easy-to-leam,  easy-to-use 
word  processing  package  that  interfaces  with 
the  other  members  of  the  PFS  family  and 
with  other  popular  software  programs.  In 
addition  to  its  comprehensive  editing  func¬ 
tions,  PFS:  Write  also  allows  the  user  to  print 
personalized  form  letters  from  PFS:File ,  to 
merge  PFS: Report  and  PFS:Graph  output 
into  the  body  of  a  PFS:  Write  document,  and 
to  merge  output  from  other  programs  such  as 
VisiCalc  and  Lotus  1-2-3.  $140. 

Soft  Word  Systems,  Inc. 

East  Hartford,  CT 

MultiMate.  Word  processing  software  pack¬ 
age  for  the  pc  and  most  plug  compatibles. 
Offers  eighty  functions,  a  complete  user 
manual  including  tutorial,  and  complete 
dealer  and  end  user  support.  $495. 

State  of  the  Art,  Inc. 

Costa  Mesa,  CA 

The  State  of  the  Art  Word  Processing.  Mod¬ 
ule  offers  as  standard  all  the  features  you 
need  in  a  text  processing  system.  It  can  take 
business  information  directly  from  your  ac¬ 
counting  files  and  insert  it  quickly  and  easily 
into  documents  you  design.  $393. 

Symmetric  Software,  Inc. 

San  Bernardino,  CA 
Blue.  An  advanced  word  processor.  Its 
unique  features  are  multiwindow,  multifile, 
full-color  editing  with  cut  and  paste  between 
documents.  Formatting  features  include 
chapters,  sections,  lists,  footnotes,  and  tables 
of  contents.  On-line  help  plus  mouse  sup¬ 
port  makes  Blue  easy  to  learn  and  use.  $150. 


214 


softcilk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


Shatters  The  Mold. 


i'SL 


is 


A  vibrant,  varied  new  world  of 
color  is  now  at  your  fingertips. 

We’ve  shattered  the  mold  for 
color  graphics  adapters  with 
COLORPLUS,  a  high  resolution,  full 
color  breakthrough  fully  compat¬ 
ible  with  IBM 
Personal  Com¬ 
puter  hardware 
and  software. 

COLORPLUS 
produces 
incredibly  sharp,  detailed  multi¬ 
color  graphics  of  professional 
quality  at  a  low  PC  price!  Its  state 
of  the  art  biplanar  technology 
enables  high  resolution  4  color  80 
character  graphics  or  medium 
resolution  1 6  color  40  character 
graphics. 

The  current  IBM  PC 
capabilities  of  high  resolu¬ 
tion  1  color  80  character 
graphics  and  medium 


resolution  4  color  40  character 
graphics  simply  pale  in  comparison, 
now  that  the  era  of  COLORPLUS 
has  arrived. 

Using  only  a  single  expan¬ 
sion  slot,  COLORPLUS 
includes  an  integrated 
parallel  port,  thereby  saving 
you  an  expansion  slot  for 
future  needs.  No  modification  is 
required  to  existing  software  in  the 
IBM  modes.  Enhanced  software 
supporting  COLORPLUS  Graphics 
capabilities  is  currently  available 
from  major  software  suppliers. 

For  over  31  years,  Frederick 
Electronics  Corporation  has 
developed  high  quality  electronic 
equipment  world-wide.  The  key  to 
our  success  is  our 
international  reputation 
for  customer  support. 
PC  +  Products  will 
continue  in  this 


tradition.  Frederick  Electronics . 
Corporation  is  a  subsidiary  of 
Plantronics,  Inc.,  a  publicly  owned 
company  listed  on  the 
NYSE  as  PLX. 

The  goal  of  PC+ 
Products  is  to  expand 
your  options,  to  make 
your  personal  com¬ 
puter  more  valuable  and  productive. 
COLORPLUS  is  just  one  example  of 
our  commitment  to  that  objective. 

Contact  us  for  the  name  of  your 
nearest  COLORPLUS  dealer. 


Illl 

mr 


>|Q#  PRODUCTS 


PLANTRONICS™ 

Frederick  Electronics 

7630  Hayward  Road,  P,G.  Box  502 
Frederick,  Maryland  21701 
Telephone:  1  -800-638-621 1 

(301)  662-5901 ,  TELEX:  893438 


*  Suggested  retail  pricer  $475.00,  including  software. 


PC  +  and  COLORPLUS  are  trademarks  ol  Ranlranics/Frederick  Electronics  Corp.  IBM  is  a  registered  trademark  erf  International  Business  Machines  Corp. 


Index  of  Contributors 


A 

Abacus  Data,  1920  San  Marco  Boulevard, 
Jacksonville,  FL  32207;  904-396-8547  or  800- 
874-8555. 

AbCom,  206  North  Main  Street,  Bishop,  CA 
93514;  619-872-1946. 

ABW  Corporation,  Box  MI 047,  Ann  Arbor,  Ml 
48106;  313-971-9364. 

Addison-Wesley  Publishing,  6  Jacob  Way, 
Reading,  MA  01867;  617-944-3700, 

Advanced  Micro  Techniques,  1291  East  Hillsdale 
Boulevard,  Suite  209 ,  Foster  City  CA  94404; 
415-349-9336 , 

Advanced  Systems  Concepts,  435  North  Lake 
Avenue,  Pasadena,  CA  91101;  213-793-8971 
or  800-824-7080, 

Adventure  International,  Box  3435,  Longwood, 
FL  32750;  305-862-6917. 

Aeon  Concepts,  1657  Red  Mill  Drive,  Pittsburgh, 
PA  15241;  412-631-5352. 

AgDisk/HT5, 624  Peach  Street,  Lincoln,  NE  68501 . 

AgriData  Resources,  205  West  Highland  Avenue, 
Milwaukee,  W!  53203;  414-278-7676. 

Aguila,  24  Park  Street,  Pepperell,  M A  01463; 
617-433-9502. 

1  Ahaf,  1475  Rodriguez  Street,  Santa  Cruz,  CA 
95062;  408-475-7247 

A  I  Design,  Box  3685,  Santa  Clara,  CA  95055; 
408-296-1634, 

Alpha  Delta  Communications,  Box  571 , 
Centerville,  OH  45459;  513-435-4772. 

Alpha  Software,  12  New  England  Executive 
Park,  Burlington,  MA  01803:  617-229-2924, 

Alternative  Software,  1165  Barbara  Drive, 
Cherry  Hill,  NJ  08003;  609-429-3838, 

American  Training  International,  3770  Highland 
Avenue,  Suite  201,  Manhattan  Beach,  CA 
90266;  213-546-4725. 

Amtek  Systems,  1400  South  Sherman,  Suite  202, 
Richardson,  TX  75081;  214-238-5300. 

Anderson-Beil,  Box  191,  Canon  City,  CO  81212; 
303-275-1661 , 

And /Or  Press,  Box  522,  Berkeley,  CA  94701; 
415-849-2665. 


Anidata,  318  South  Black  Horse  Pike, 
Blackwood,  N]  08012;  609-228-3034. 

Ann  Arbor  Software,  407  North  Main.  Ann 
Arbor,  Ml  48104;  313-769-9088. 

Anthro-Digital,  Box  1385.  Pittsfield,  M A  01202; 
413-448-8278, 

Apogee  Designs,  3100  Fallscliff  Road,  Baltimore, 
MD  21211;  301-235-7523. 

Applied  Creative  Technology,  2723  Avenue  E, 
East,  Suite  717,  Arlington,  TX  76010;  800- 
433-5373.  In  Texas  817-261-6905. 

Applied  MicroSystems,  Box  832,  Roswell,  GA 
30077;  404-475-0832,  371-0832. 

Applied  Software  Technology,  170  Knowles 
Drive,  Los  Gatos,  CA  95030;  408-370-2662, 

Architecture  Technology,  Box  24344, 
Minneapolis,  MN  55424;  612-935-2035, 

Artificial  intelligence  Research  Group,  921 
North  La  Jolla  Avenue,  Los  Angeles,  CA 
90046;  213-656-7368  or  654-2214. 

Ask  Micro,  100  Blue  Ravine  Road,  Folsom,  CA 
95630;  916-985-6555. 

AST  Research,  2372  Morse  Avenue,  Irvine,  CA 
92714,  714-540-1333. 

Atron,  20665  Fourth  Street,  Saratoga,  CA  95070; 
408-741-5900. 

ATV  Research,  1301  Broadway,  Dakota  City,  NE 
68731;  402-987-3771. 

Autodesk,  150  Shoreline  Highway,  Building  B, 
Suite  20,  Mill  Valley,  CA  94941;  415- 
331-0356, 

The  Avalon  Hill  Game  Company,  4517  Harford 
Road,  Baltimore,  MD  21213;  301-254-9200, 

Avant-Garde,  Box  30160,  Eugene,  OR  97403; 
503-345-3043. 

Awareco,  38401  South  Highway  1,  Gualala,  CA 
95445,  800-358-9120,  in  C A  800-862-4948. 

Axiom,  1014  Griswold  Avenue,  San  Fernando, 
CA  91340;  213-365-9521. 


B 

Back  Bay  Micro,  Box  933,  Burlington,  MA 
01803;  617-938-1014, 

Basic  Business  Software,  Box  2631 1 ,  Las  Vegas, 
NV  89126;  702-876-9493. 


The  BBE  Company,  Box  771448,  Houston,  TX 

77215;  713-270-7485. 

BC  Systems,  1016  East  31$t  Street,  LaGrange 
Park,  ll  60525;  312-579-0672. 

BDI  Business  Development  International,  Box 
329,  Pembina,  ND  58271;  204-837-8509. 

Beaman  Porter,  Pleasant  Ridge  Road.  Harrison, 
NY  10528;  914-967-3504. 

Behavorial  Engineering,  230  Mount  HermOn 
Road,  Scotts  Valley,  CA  95066,  408-438-5649. 

Best  Programs,  5134  Leesburg  Pike,  Alexandria, 
VA  22302;  703-93 1-1300. 

BIT  Software,  1048  Nicklaus  Avenue,  Milpitas, 
CA  95035;  408-262-1054, 

Bizcomp,  532  Weddel  Drive,  Sunnyvale,  CA 
94089;  408-745-1616. 

Black  Box,  Box  12800,  Pittsburgh,  PA  15241; 
412-746-2910. 

Blaise  Computing,  1609  Acton  Street,  Berkeley, 
C A  94702;  415-524-6603. 

Blue  Water  Systems,  Box  1877,  Oceanside,  CA 
92054;  619-722-0059, 

Blythe  Valley  Software,  Box  l,  Oakhurst,  CA 
93644,  209-6S3-4735. 

The  Book  Company,  11223  South  Hindry 
Avenue,  Los  Angeles,  CA  90045;  213- 
410-9466. 

Bourbaki,  Box  2867,  Boise,  ID  83701;  208-342- 
5849. 

BP1  Systems,  3423  Guadalupe,  Austin,  TX 
78705;  512-454-7191, 

Robert  J*  Brady  Company,  Routes  197  and  450, 
Bowie,  MD  20715;  301-262-6300. 

Bretford  Manufacturing,  9715  Soreng  Avenue, 
Schiller  Park,  IL  60176;  312-678-2545, 

Rriston  Information  Systems,  84  North  Main 
Street,  Fall  River,  MA  02720;  617-679-1051. 

Rroderbund  Software,  17  Paul  Drive,  San 
Rafael,  CA  94903;  415-479-1170, 

William  C.  Brown  Company  Publishers,  2460 
Kerper  Boulevard,  Dubuque,  I A  52001;  319- 
588-1451, 

Bruce  &  James  Program  Publishers,  4500  Tuller 
Road,  Dublin,  OH  43017;  614-766-0110. 

Business  and  Professional  Software,  143  Binney 
Street,  Cambridge,  MA  02142;  800-DIAL 
BPS,  617-491-3377, 


21  b 


softoik 


BusinessMaster,  1207M  Elm  Avenue,  Carlsbad, 
CA  92008;  619-434-6165. 

BusiSoft,  6140  Horseshoe  Bar  Road,  Suite  K, 
Loomis,  CA  95650;  916-652-9227. 

Byad,  95  West  Algonquin  Road,  Arlington 
Heights,  IL  60005;  312-228-3400. 


c 


California  Design  Works,  Box  3052,  Monterey, 
CA  93940. 

California  Software  Products,  525  North 
Cabrillo  Park  Drive,  Santa  Ana,  CA  92701; 
714-937-0440. 

Capitol  Sales,  13740-J2  Research  Boulevard, 
Austin,  TX  78750;  512-250 -8757. 

Cardinal  Software,  96  Blueberry  Lane,  South 
Hamilton,  MA  01982;  617-468-4702. 

Carnegie  Software,  Box  1752,  Redondo  Beach, 
CA  90278;  213-374-0550. 

Cases,  Box  33820,  Seattle,  WA  98133;  206- 
365-5210. 

CBS  Education  and  Professional  Publishing,  383 
Madison  Avenue,  New  York,  NY  10017;  212- 
872-2000. 

Cdex,  5050  El  Camino  Real,  Los  Altos,  CA 
94022;  415-964-7600. 

Central  Point  Software,  Box  19730-^203, 
Portland,  OR  97219;  503-244-5782. 

Chang  Laboratories,  5300  Stevens  Creek 
Boulevard,  Suite  200,  San  Jose,CA  95129; 
408-246-8020. 

Charter  Software,  Box  70,  Monticello,  IL  61856; 
217-762-5301. 


Chilton  Book,  Radnor,  PA  19089;  215-964-4000 
or  800-345-1214. 

CMA  Micro  Computer,  55722  Santa  Fe  Trail, 
Yucca  Valley,  CA  92284;  619-365-9718. 

Codo  Manufacturing,  650  Beverly  Boulevard, 
Upper  Darby,  PA  19082;  215-352-9214. 

ColorCorp,  208  North  Berkshire,  Bloomfield 
Hills,  MI  48013;  313-335-2255.  Outside  Ml 
800-521-0793. 

Comprehensive  Software  Support,  2316  Artesia 
Boulevard,  Suite  B,  Redondo  Beach,  CA 
90278;  213-318-2561. 

CompuCable,  1440  South  State  College 
Boulevard,  Suite  6J,  Anaheim,  CA  92806; 
714-635-7330,  800-222-2332. 

Compucart,  Box  2095,  Tampa,  FL  33601;  800- 
237-9024,  in  FL  813-251-2431. 

Compu  Cover,  Box  310,  Mary  Ester,  FL  32569; 
904-244-5238. 

Compugift,  27802  Perales  Street,  Mission  Viejo, 
CA  92692;  714-768-8223. 

Compu-Law,  3520  Wesley  Street,  Culver  City, 
CA  90230;  213-558-3360. 

Compumax,  Box  7239,  Menlo  Park,  CA  94025; 
415-854-6700. 

Compu-Quote,  6914  Berquist  Ave.,  Dept.  ST, 
Canoga  Park,  CA  91307;  213-348-3662. 

CompuServe,  5000  Arlington  Center  Boulevard, 
Columbus,  OH  43220. 

Computer-Advanced  Ideas,  1442A  Walnut 
Street,  Suite  341,  Berkeley,  CA  94709;  415- 
526-9100. 

Computer  Age  of  San  Francisco,  1827  Haight 
Street,  Suite  102,  San  Francisco,  CA  94117; 
415-921-7792. 


Computer  Case,  5650  Indian  Mound  Court, 
Columbus,  OH  43213;  614-868-9464, 
800-848-7548. 

Computer  Control  Systems,  298  21st  Terrace, 
Southeast,  Largo,  FL  33541;  813-586-1886. 

Computer  Creations,  Box  38,  Palo  Alto,  CA 
94302;  415-595-4466. 

Computer  Furniture,  Box  2663,  Chapel  Hill,  NC 
27514;  919-967-8104. 

Computer  Innovations,  10  Mechanic  Street, 

Suite  5,  Red  Bank,  NJ  07701;  201-530-0995. 

Computer  Labs  of  America,  9340A  Clairemont 
Mesa  Boulevard,  San  Diego,  CA  92123;  619- 
576-1133. 

Computer  Software  Design,  1911  Wright  Circle, 
Anaheim,  CA  92806;  714-634-9012. 

The  Computer  Workshop,  322  Shelden  Avenue, 
Houghton,  MI  49931;  906-482-8009. 

Compu  Trac,  Box  15951,  New  Orleans,  LA 
70175;  800-535-7990. 

Concept  Group,  4849  N.  Mesa,  Suite  101,  El 
Paso,  TX  79912;  915-544-4444. 

Conceptual  Instruments,  4730  Warrington 

Avenue,  Philadelphia,  PA  19143;  215-726-7856. 

Consolink,  1821  Left  Hand  Circle,  Longmont, 

CO  80501;  800-525-6705. 

Consumers  Software,  106-314  East  Holly  Street, 
Department  I,  Bellingham,  WA  98225;  800- 
654-5501. 

Continental  Software,  11223  South  Hindry 
Avenue,  Los  Angeles,  CA  90045;  213- 
410-3977. 

Control  Technology,  8200  North  Classen 
Boulevard,  Suite  101,  Oklahoma  City,  OK 
73114;  405-840-3163. 


A  REPORTING  SYSTEM  FOR  A  SPREADSHEET  DATABASE 

(for  any  VisiCalc®  or  Lotus  1-2-3®  User) 

Most  database  systems  consider  rows  of  data  fields  as  records.  The  3-D  concept  promoted  by  Abacus  says  to  consider  an  entire  report  as  a  record. 
Therefore,  visualize  "pages"  of  reports  stacked-on  or  scattered-around  your  desk;  these  would  constitute  your  database. 


VIC-A-MERCE 


With  Viz-A-Merge  (Namely-A-Merge  System)  you  can  "cut  and  paste" 

sections  of  spreadsheet  reports  together  to  form  new  reports - 

Electronically!!!  As  a  spreadsheet  utility  Viz-A-Merge  allows  you  to 
combine  sections,  rows,  columns,  or  single  cells  from  any  number  of 
spreadsheet  pages  into  one  new  report,  or  into  an  existing  report,  then 
recalculate  selected  formulas.  For  example,  you  could  "cut"  total  year 
end  columns  from  Department  reports  and  the  consolidated  reports, 
then  "paste"  them  together  for  overall  company  analysis.  Or,  you  could 
place  a  total  sales  row  into  an  income  statement  and  recalculate  all 
formulas. 


With  Viz-A-Con  (Namely-A-Consolidation  System)  you  can  add  3-Di¬ 
mensional  capability  to  your  spreadsheet  program.  As  a  Report  Writer 
to  your  database,  Viz-A-Con  allows  you  to  select  records  ("pages"),  get 
sub-totals  and  totals  for  all  number  fields,  and  have  customized  labels 
on  the  final  report.  For  example  you  can  perform  hierarchical  con¬ 
solidations  (Dept.,  Div.,  Company)  or  time  period  roll-up  (Day,  Week, 
Month,  Qtr.,  Year).  You  can  consolidate  up  to  50  files  in  one  process  and 
you  can  tie  together  as  many  as  80  processes  in  one  group.  Then  play 
"what  if"  with  VisiCalc  and  regenerate  all  reports  in  one  single  step. 


Each  Product  has  a  simple  Question  &  Answer  procedure  to  assist  you  in  organizing  your  report  processes.  You  can  create  a  complete  reporting  network 
from  a  spreadsheet  database.  They  have  the  ability  to  "remember"  the  steps  they  went  through  to  create  the  final  reports.  You  can  use  your  spreadsheet 
program  to  recalculate  new  data,  then  use  our  products  to  regenerate  all  new  reports  in  one  single  step.  Also,  you  can  set-up  special  formulas  to  calculate 
additional  data  fields  within  the  new  reports.  You  can  customize  titles,  row  and  column  headings,  footnotes,  etc.  for  each  report. 

Both  products  include  sample  sessions  which  are  easy  to  understand,  allowing  the  average  person  to  learn  them  in  only  15  minutes.  They  are  both 
compatible  with  dBase  II™  (IBM),  PFS  Graph®  and  a  host  of  popular  products. 

Abacus  Associates  is  dedicated  to  producing  products  that  allow  users  to  create  customized  reporting  systems  tailored  to  the  way  they  manually 
organize  their  data. 

Please  order  either  Viz-A-Merge  or  Viz-A-Con  directly  from  Abacus  Associates.  Send  your  check  or  money  order  to  Abacus  Associates,  6565  W.  Loop 
South,  Suite  240,  Bellaire,  TX  77401,  or  credit  card  customers  may  CALL  TOLL  FREE  (800)' 547-5995,  ext.  170.  In  Nebraska,  (800)  642-9606,  ext. 170. 

Apple  II,  II  +  ,  He,  TRS-80  I,  III,  IV . $  99.95 

Apple  III,  TRS-80  11/12/16,  IBM-PC . $139.95 

Add  $3.95  S  &  H  per  package. 

VisiCalc  is  a  registered  trademark  of  VisiCorp.  Lotus  1.  2,  3  is  a  trademark  of  the  Lotus  Development  Co 

Look  for  forthcoming  3-D  application  templates 


for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  2983 


217 


Corona  Data  Systems,  31324  Via  Colinas,  Suite 
110,  Westlake  Village,  CA  91361;  213- 
706-1505. 

Cortland  Data  Systems,  Box  14414,  Chicago,  1L 
60614;  312-549-2029. 

Counterpoint  Software,  4005  West  65th  Street, 
Suite  218,  Edina,  MN  55435;  800-328-1223. 

Courseware,  10075  Carroll  Canyon  Road,  San 
Diego,  CA  92131;  619-578-1700. 

Covers  A  Lot,  Box  369,  La  Honda,  CA  94020; 
415-747-0352. 

Craftsbury  Software,  1623  Montaque  Street, 
Northwest,  Washington,  DC  20011;  202- 
829-3121. 

Creative  Computer  Products,  Box  85152,  San 
Diego,  CA  92318;  800-231-5413,  CA 
523-5441. 

Cuesta  Systems,  3440  Roberto  Court,  San  Luis 
Obispo,  CA  93401;  805-541-4160. 

Curtis  Manufacturing,  305  Union  Street, 
Peterborough,  NJ  03458;  603-924-7803. 

CYMA,  2160  East  Brown  Road,  Mesa,  A Z 
85203;  602-835-8880. 

Cypher,  121  Second  Street,  San  Francisco,  CA 
94104;  415-974-5297. 


DE 


Data  Base  Decisions,  14  Bonnie  Lane,  Atlanta, 
GA  30328;  404-256-3860. 

Data  Consulting,  877  Bounty  Drive,  Suite 
EE203,  Foster  City,  CA  94404;  414-571-8100. 
Data  Encore,  585  North  Mary  Avenue, 
Sunnyvale,  CA  94086,  408-720-7400. 
Datamension,  615  Academy  Drive,  Northbrook, 
1L  60062;  312-564-5060. 


Datamost,  8943  Fullbright  Avenue,  Chatsworth, 
CA  91311;  213-709-1202. 

Datasmith,  Box  8036,  Shawnee  Mission,  KS 
66208;  913-381-9118. 

Data  Systems  International,  Box  2351, 
Harrisburg,  PA  17105;  717-780-1000. 

Data  Tec,  Box  632,  Manchester,  MO  63011;  314- 
394-344I. 

Datatek,  2621  Enterprise  Road,  Clearwater,  FL 
33575;  813-797-6464. 

Data  Terminals  and  Communications,  590 
Division  Street,  Campbell,  CA  95008;  408- 
378-1112. 

Davidson  &  Associates,  6069  Groveoak  Place, 
Suite  12,  Rancho  Palos  Verdes,  CA  92074; 
213-378-7826  or  378-3993. 

Davong  Systems,  217  Humboldt  Court, 
Sunnyvale,  CA  94086;  408-734-4900. 

Daystar  Systems,  10511  Church  Road,  Suite  L, 
Dallas,  TX  75238;  214-341-8136. 

Decision  Support  Software,  1438  Ironwood 
Drive,  McLean,  VA  22101;  703-241-8316. 

DEG  Software,  11999  Katy  Freeway,  Suite  150, 
Houston,  TX  77079;  713-531-6100  or 
800-231-0627. 

Denberg  Industries,  10709  Wayzata  Boulevard, 
Minneapolis,  MN  55343;  612-506-8141. 

Design  Trends,  Box  G,  Wilton,  CT  06897;  203- 
834-1560. 

DesignWare,  185  Berry  Street,  Building  Three, 
Suite  158,  San  Francisco,  CA  94107;  415- 
546-1866. 

Desktop  Computer  Software,  Inc.,  303  Potrero, 
Santa  Cruz,  CA  95060;  408-458-9095. 

Developmental  Learning  Materials,  One  DLM 
Park,  Allen,  TX  75002;  800-527-4747,  Texas 
442-4711. 


Diamond  Head  Software,  841  Bishop  Street, 
Suite  1618,  Honolulu, HI  96813;  808-537-4972. 

Digisoft  Computers,  1501  Third  Avenue,  New 
York,  NY  10028;  212-734-3875. 

Digit  Magazine,  Box  29996,  San  Francisco,  CA 
94129;  415-931-1885, 

Digital  Marketing,  2363  Boulevard  Circle, 
Walnut  Creek,  CA  94595;  800-826-2222. 

Digital  Research,  Box  579,  Pacific  Grove,  CA 
93950;  408-649-3896  or  Dealer  Referral  800- 
227-1617  or  CA  772-3545,  ext  400. 

dilithium  Press,  8285  Southwest  Nimbus,  Suite 
151,  Beaverton,  OR  97005;  800-547-1842,  or 
OR  646-2713. 

direct. aid.  Box  4420,  Boulder,  CO  80306;  303- 
442-8080. 

Diskus  Products,  6003  Bandini  Boulevard,  Los 
Angeles,  CA  90040;  213-726-3088. 

Distributed  Planning  Systems,  22533  Jameson 
Drive,  Woodland  Hills,  CA  91364;  213- 
992-4447. 

Distributed  Software  Systems,  Box  1301, 
Northbrook,  IL  60062;  312-634-1511. 

Dow  Jones,  Box  300,  Princeton,  NJ  08540;  800- 
257-5114. 

The  D  P  Consultant,  Box  1174,  Plano,  TX 
75074;  214-596-0594. 

D/ Punch,  Box  201,  Newton  Highlands,  MA 
02161;  617-527-3547,  800-227-3800. 

Dresselhaus  Computer  Products,  837  East  Alosta 
Avenue,  Glendora,  CA  91740;  213-914-5831. 

Dynacomp,  1427  Monroe  Avenue,  Rochester, 

NY  14618;  716-442-8960. 

Earth  Data,  Box  13168,  Richmond,  VA  23225; 
804-231-0300. 

Edu-Ware  Services,  28035  Dorothy  Drive, 
Agoura  Hills,  CA  91301;  213-706-0661. 


SPF/PC™ 

ACTUALLY,  there  is  no  comparison.  SPF/PC  is 
the  best  full-screen  editor  available  for  the  IBM 
Personal  Computer. 

It  looks  and  works  like  IBM’s  large  system  SPF 
editor. 

THE  0DD-C0UPLE™ 

Allows  the  APPLE  and  IBM/PC  to 
communicate  with  each  other. 

•Connect  APPLE  to  PC,  APPLE  to  APPLE,  and  PC 
to  PC. 

•SPF/PC  can  use  up  to  786K  of  memory  as  workspace. 

•Word  processing  commands. 

•4-way  scrolling. 

•Split  screen  support. 

•On-line  help  facility. 

•Can  edit  up  to  240  character  records. 

•Monochrome  or  color  supported. 

•  Instantaneous  screen  display. 

•Block  Move /Copy /Repeat /Delete /Overlay /Shift /Exclude 
•Automatic  line  numbering  supported. 

•40  user-definable  Program  Function  Keys. 

1  •  Direct  interface  to  DOS  commands  for  PCD0S  2.0  users. 

•Browse  sub-system. 

•Move/Copy  sub-system  copies  any  file  format. 

•Utilities  include:  Rename/Delete/Print/Directory  list. 

AND  MUCH  MORE  .  .  . 

UPLOAD/ DOWNLOAD  sub-system  available  to  SPF/PC  users  for 
$50.00. 

•Transfer  any  file  in  either  direction. 

•CHAT  mode  allows  direct  communications 
through  the  keyboard. 

•An  Equipment  Profile  allows  description  of 
your  operating  environment. 

•Communicate  Direct  or  through  a  Modem  at 
speeds  up  to  9600  baud  (bps). 

•Written  entirely  in  machine  language  for  speed 
.  and  efficiency. 

REQUIREMENTS: 

APPLE  —  48K,  1  disk  drive,  Serial  Interface 

IBM  —  64K,  1  disk  drive,  Serial  Interface 

$-4  A  Q  Q  (T  SPF/PC  requires  128K,  PCDOS, 

|  *T  \J  ■  \J  \J  and  1  disk  drive. 

$79.95 

1  For  orders  and  dealer  information  write  or  call  Rogue  River  Software,  2822  Tahitian  Ave.,  Medford,  OR  97504, 

1  (503)  779-3002.  Mastercard/Visa,  Check,  or  P.O.  accepted.  Add  $5.00  for  shipping.  Canada  $10.00.  Foreign  $15.00. 

|  IBM  is  a  rcflit lerctl  trademark  of  International  Business  Machines,  i ■*  a  trademark  of  Aypie  C^puter  Inc. 

218 


softcilk 


8th  Dimension  Enterprises,  Box  62366, 
Sunnyvale,  CA  94088;  408-972-0469. 

Einstein  Software,  11340  West  Olympic 

Boulevard,  Suite  221,  Los  Angeles,  CA  90064; 
213-477-4530. 

El  Dorado  Software,  459A  Castro  Street,  San 
Francisco,  CA  94114;  415-626-0588. 

Electronic  Courseware  Systems,  309  Windsor 
Road,  Champaign,  IL  61820;  217-359-7099. 

Electronic  Data  Systems,  7171  Forest  Lane, 
Dallas,  TX  75230;  214-661-6273. 

Ellis  Computing,  3917  Noriega  Street,  San 
Francisco,  CA  94122;  415-753-0186. 

Elsevier  Science  Publishing,  52  Vanderbilt 

Avenue,  New  York,  NY  10017;  212  867-9040. 

Emerald  Software,  Box  19453,  Seattle,  WA 
98109;  206-282-2100. 

Emerging  Technology,  2031  Broadway,  Boulder, 
CO  80302;  303-447-9495  or  800-782-4896. 

Enertronics  Research,  150  North  Meramec,  Suite 
207,  St.  Louis,  MO  63105;  800-325-0174. 

Ensign  Software,  7337  Northview  Road,  Boise, 

ID  83704;  208-378-8086. 

ErgoSoft,  7122  Cather  Court,  San  Diego,  CA 
92122. 

E&S  Software,  Box  238,  Bedford,  MA  01730; 
617-275-8534. 

Europro,  129  Saratoga,  Petaluma,  CA  94952; 
707-763-9700. 

Execuware,  7415  Pineville-Matthews  Road,  Suite 
300,  Charlotte,  NC  28226;  704-541-1199  or 
800-438-3636. 


FG 

Falcon  Safety  Products,  1065  Briston  Road, 
Mountainside,  NJ  07092;  201-233-5000. 

Ferox  Microsystems,  1701  North  Fort  Myer 
Drive,  Arlington,  VA  22209;  703-841-0800. 

Flexware,  15404  E.  Valley  Boulevard,  Industry, 

CA  91746;  213-961-0257. 

Fiberbilt  Computer  Cases,  601  West  26th  Street, 
New  York,  NY  10001;  800-847-4176  or  NY 
212-675-5820. 

Financial  Software,  11401  Westridge  Circle, 
Chardon,  OH  44024;  800-392-2669,  in  OH 
216-338-6811. 

FineTech  Furniture,  Box  280,  Highway  53, 
Woodbury,  TN  37190;  615-765-5021. 

Flip-It  Works!,  Box  201,  Newton  Highlands,  MA 
02161;  617-527-3547  or  800-227-3800. 

Fliptrack  Learning  Systems,  999  Main  Street, 
Suite  200,  Glen  Ellyn,  IL  60137;  312-790-1117. 

FMJ,  Box  5281,  Torrance, CA  90510;  213-325-1900. 

Focus  Media,  839  Stewart  Avenue,  Garden  City, 
NY  11530;  516-794-8900. 

Fox  and  Geller,  604  Market  Street,  Elmwood 
Park,  NJ  07407;  201-  794-8883. 

Friendlysoft,  3638  West  Pioneer  Parkway, 
Arlington,  TX  76013;  817-277-9378. 

Frontier  Technologies,  Box  11238,  Milwaukee, 

WI  53211;  414-964-8689. 

Funtastic,  5-12  Wilde  Avenue,  Drexel  Hill,  PA 
19026;  215-622-5716. 

GAI  Systems,  699A  Rue  Saint  Francois, 

Florissant,  MO  63031;  314-831-6464. 

Gateway  Microsystems,  9501  Capital  of  Texas 
Highway  North,  Suite  105,  Austin,  TX  78759. 

Generic  Software,  Box  790,  Dept  150P, 

Marquette,  MI  49855;  906-249-9801. 

Giltronix,  3780  Fabian  Way,  Palo  Alto,  CA 
94303;  415-493-1300. 

GM  Enterprise,  485  East  Granville  Avenue, 

Rosell,  IL  60172;  312-893-1171. 

Gourmet  Software,  671  Eden  Avenue,  San  Jose, 
CA  95117;  408-866-0887. 


Graphic  Communications,  200  Fifth  Avenue, 
Waltham,  MA  02254;  617-  890-8778. 

Great  Plains  Software,  1701  38th  Street, 

Southwest,  Fargo,  ND  58107;  701-281-0550. 
Gryphon  Microproducts,  Box  6543,  Silver 
Spring,  MD  20906;  301-946-2585. _ 


H 

Harper  Business  Systems,  910  -  179th  Court, 
Northeast,  Bellevue,  WA  98008;  206- 
643-9762. 

Harvard  Associates,  260  Beacon  Street, 
Somerville,  MA  02143. 

Hayden  Book  Company,  10  Mulholland  Drive, 
Hasbrouck  Heights,  NJ  07604;  201- 
288-7520. 

Hayes  Products,  1558  Osage  Street,  San  Marcos, 
CA  92069;  619-744-8546. 

The  Headlands  Press,  Box  862,  Tiburon,  CA 
94920;  415-435-9775. 

Healthware,  1504  Leander  Road,  Georgetown, 
TX  78626;  512-863-6910. 

Hercules  Computer  Technology,  2550  Ninth 
Street,  Suite  210,  Berkeley,  CA  94710;  415- 
540-6000. 

Hewlett-Packard,  16399  West  Bernardo  Drive, 
San  Diego,  CA  92127;  619-487-4100. 

Hi  Tech,  126  Lighthouse  Avenue,  Santa  Cruz, 

CA  95060;  408-425-5654. 

Hi  Tech  Computer  Services,  Box  1396,  Fairfield, 
CT  06430;  203-366-1922. 

Hollander  Office  Products,  15500  West  Telegraph 
Road  A-6,  Santa  Paula,  CA  93060; 

805-525-  2158. 

Hooleon,  Box  18lOS,  Cottonwood,  A 2  86326; 
602-634-4503  or  634-4507. 

Howard  Software  Services,  8008  Girard,  Suite 
310,  La  Jolla,  CA  92037;  619-454-0121. 

Human  Systems  Dynamics,  9010  Reseda 

Boulevard,  Suite  222,  Northridge,  CA  91324; 
213-993-8536. 

Hytek,  6502  Micro  Drive,  Dayton,  MD  21036; 
301-854-0058. 


i 

IAS,  Mason  Road  2,  West  Willington,  CT  06279; 
203-429-1691. 

I.B.  Magazette,  1306  Petroleum  Tower, 
Shreveport,  LA  71118;  318-221-3334. 

IDE  Associates,  7  Oak  Park  Drive,  Bedford,  MA 
01730;  617-275-4430. 

IMSI,  633  Fifth  Avenue,  San  Rafael,  CA  94901; 
415-454-7101. 

Individual  Software,  24  Spinnaker  Place, 
Redwood  City,  CA  94065;  415-591-4166. 

Inet,  536  Weddell  Drive,  Sunnyvale,  CA  94089; 
408-734-0593. 

Infocom,  55  Wheeler  Street,  Cambridge,  MA 
02138;  617-492-1031. 

Infopro,  Box  22,  Bensalem,  PA  19020;  215- 
750-1023. 

Info-Pros,  2102  Business  Center  Drive,  Irvine, 
CA  92715;  714-851-8975. 

Information  Access,  Box  871,  Shalimar,  FL 
32579;  904-651-3108. 

Information  Solutions,  617  West  Main  Street, 
Charlottesville,  VA  22902;  804-979-8191. 
Information  Unlimited  Software,  2401 

Marinship  Way,  Sausalito,  CA  94965;  415- 
331-6700. 

Inner  Loop  Software,  Box  45857-R,  Los  Angeles, 
CA  90045;  213-645-5162. 

Innovative  Software,  9300  West  110th  Street, 


Suite  380,  Overland  Park,  KS  66210;  913- 
383- 1089. 

Insoft,  7833  Southwest  Cirrus  Drive,  Beaverton, 
OR  97005;  503-641-5223. 

Intelligent  Software,  4847  Mercury  Street,  San 
Diego,  CA  92111;  619-565-1236. 

Intelligent  Technologies  International,  151 
University  Avenue,  Palo  Alto,  CA  94301; 
415-328-2411. 

Interactive  Structures,  146  Montgomery 
Avenue,  Bala  Cynwyd,  PA  19072; 
215-667-1713. 

Intercalc,  Box  254,  Scarsdale,  NY  10583;  914- 
472-0038. 

International  Computers,  Box  13547,  Mexico 
Beach,  FL  32410;  914-648-8484 . 

International  Software  Alliance,  1835  Mission 
Ridge  Road,  Santa  Barbara,  CA  93103;  805- 
966-3077. 

Intra  Computer,  101  West  31st  Street,  New  York, 
NY  10001;  212-947-5533. 

Intra  Day  Analyst,  Box  15952,  New  Orleans,  LA 
70175;  800-535-7990. 

Invester's  Software,  Box  N,  Bradenton  Beach,  FL 
33510;  813-778-5515. 

I-Protect,  4644  Lincoln  Boulevard,  Suite  101, 
Marina  Del  Rey,  CA  90292;  213-306-9866. 

IRC  Associates,  125  Sherrfield  Drive,  Suite  X9, 
Saginaw,  Ml  48603;  517-792-2156. 

The  Iron-Interface  Group,  3938  Meadowbrook 
Road,  Saint  Louis  Park,  MN  55426; 
612-938-8697. 

ISYS,  Box  214,  Cambridge,  MA  02138; 
617-491-6221. 


JK 

Jefferson  Software,  723  Kanawha  Boulevard, 
East,  Charleston,  WV  25301;  304-342-0769. 

John  James  Furnishings,  Box  501321,  Houston, 
TX  77250;  713-462-5533. 

Johnson  Associates  Software,  Box  3069, 
Redding,  CA  96049;  916-221-0740. 

Jupiter  Island,  1900  Powell  Street,  Suite  1135, 
Emeryville,  CA  94608;  415-655-0840. 

Keller  Software,  1825  Westcliff  Drive,  Newport 
Beach,  CA  92660;  714-642-2380. 

Key  Software,  2350  East  Devon  Avenue,  Des 
Plaines,  IL  60018;  312-298-3610. 

Kraft  Systems,  450  West  California  Avenue, 
Vista,  CA  92083;  619-724-7146. 

Krell  Software,  1320  Stony  Brook  Road,  Stony 
Brook,  NY  11790;  516-751-5139. 

Krown  Computing,  1282  Conference  Drive, 
Scotts  Valley,  CA  95066;  408-335-3133. 


i 

Laboratory  Microsystems,  4147  Beethoven 
Street,  Los  Angeles,  CA  90066;  213-306-7412. 
L  C  Systems,  Box  5360,  Coralville,  LA  52241; 
319-354-2630. 

The  Learning  Company,  545  Middlefield  Road, 
Suite  170,  Menlo  Park,  CA  94025;  415-328- 
5410. 

Learning  Tools,  686  Massachusetts  Avenue, 
Cambridge,  MA  02139;  617-864-8086. 
Lifetree  Software,  411  Pacific  Street,  Suite  315, 
Monterey,  CA  93940;  408-373-4718. 

Link  Systems,  1640  19th  Street,  Santa  Monica. 

CA  90404;  213-453-8921. 

LinTek,  Box  8056,  Grand  Rapids,  MI  49508;  616- 
241-4040. 

LNW  Computers,  2620  Walnut  Avenue,  Tustin, 
CA  92680;  714-544-5760. 


for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


219 


Logitech,  165  University  Avenue,  Suite  105,  Palo 
Alto,  CA  94301;  415-326-3885. 

Longman  Financial  Services  Publishing,  500 
North  Dearborn  Street,  Chicago,  IL  60610; 
800-621-9621,  IL  572-9510, 

FL  432-0804. 

LoTech  Ltd.,  1550  California  Street,  Suite  6270, 
San  Francisco,  CA  94109;  415-563-0304, 

Lotus  Development,  161  First  Street,  Cambridge, 
MA  02142;  617-492-7171. 

Luxor,  2245  Delany  Road,  Waukegan,  IL  60085; 
312-244-1800. 


M 

MACE,  2313  Center  Avenue,  Madison,  WI 
53704;  608-241-4566. 

Marathon  Software,  Box  26  Pinecrest,  Clancy, 
MT  59634;  406-933-5783. 

Mattel  Electronics,  5150  Rosecrans  Avenue, 
Hawthorne,  CA  90250;  213-416-9169. 

McMullen  and  McMullen,  Perry  Street,  Jefferson 
Valley,  NY  10535;  914-245-2734. 

Medisoft,  1595  Soquel  Drive,  Suite  350,  Santa 
Cruz,  CA  95065,  408-476-7106. 

Megahaus,  5703  Oberlin  Drive,  San  Diego,  CA 
92121;  619-450-1230. 

Mentat,  667  Rugby  Road,  Brooklyn,  NY  11230. 

Mentor,  533  Sutter  Street,  Suite  914,  San 
Francisco,  CA  94102;  415-558-9551, 

Menu,  1520  South  College  Avenue,  Fort  Collins, 
CO  80524;  303-482-5000  or  800- 
525-4955. 

Metafab /Microcomputer  Division,  163 

Southwest  Freeman,  Hillsboro,  OR  97123; 
503-640-2527. 


Don’t  Play  For  Pills! 
Maneuver  For  Money! 

Get  CashMan  Today! 

Now  For  The  IBM  Peanut! 

CashMan  just  $39.95  including  a  free  joystick! 


Metamorphics,  Two  Bala  Plaza,  Suite  719,  Bala 
Cynwyd,  PA  19004;  215-668-9000  or  800- 
523- 0206. 

Micro  Architect,  6  Great  Pines  Avenue, 
Burlington,  MA  01803;  617-273-5658. 

Microcomputer  Accessories,  1545  Pontius 
Avenue,  Los  Angeles,  CA  90025;  213- 
477-4216. 

Microcomputer  Applications,  827  Missouri 
Street,  Fairfield,  CA  94533;  707-422-1465. 

Microcomputer  Games,  4517  Harford  Road, 
Baltimore,  MD  21214;  301-254-9200. 

Micro  Control  Systems,  142  Tunnel  Road, 
Vernon,  CT  06066;  203-872-0602. 

Micro  Data  Base  Systems,  Box  248,  Lafayette, 

IN  47902;  317-463-2581. 

Micro  Decision  Systems,  130  Foxcroft  Road, 
Pittsburgh,  PA  15220;  412-276-2387. 

Micro  Design  International,  100  Sybelia  Avenue, 
Suite  375,  Maitland,  FL  32751. 

Micro  Disk,  Box  1377,  Gardnerville,  NV  89410; 
702-782-8105. 

Micro  Format,  1271  West  Dundee  Road,  Suite 
16A,  Buffalo  Grove,  IL  60090;  312- 
537-2426. 

Micrografx,  1701  North  Greenville,  Suite  703, 
Richardson,  TX;  214-343-4338. 

MicroLab,  2699  Skokie  Valley  Road,  Highland 
Park,  IL  60035;  312-433-7550. 

Micro  Match,  10049  Commerce  Avenue, 

Tujunga,  CA  91042;  213-352-3253. 

Micromax  Systems,  6828  Nancy  Ridge  Drive, 

San  Diego,  CA  92121;  619-457-3131. 

Micro-MRP,  1065  East  Hillsdale  Boulevard,  Suite 
114,  Foster  City,  CA  94404;  415-345-6000. 

Microrim,  1750  112th  Avenue,  Northeast, 
Bellevue,  WA  98004;  206-453-6017. 


Features 

•  One  or  Two  Players,  Multiple  Skill  Levels! 

•  Arcade  Style  Sounds,  On/Off  During  Play! 

•  Game  Freeze  Capability,  Automatic  Play  Mode! 

•  Big  Bonuses,  Each  Screen  More  Challenging! 

•  Displays  High  Score,  and  Name  of  Scorer! 

System  Requirements 

IBM  PC,  XT,  Or  Compatible  Computer 
PC-DOS  Or  MS-DOS,  6  4K  Memory,  1  Disk 
Monochrome  Or  Color  Graphics  Display 
Keyboard  Or  CashMan  Joystick  Control 


Microsoft,  10700  Northup  Way,  Bellevue,  WA 
98004;  206-828-8088. 

Microtech  Exports,  467  Hamilton  Avenue,  Palo 
Alto,  CA  94301;  415-324-9114. 

Micro  Vision,  145  Wicks  Road,  Commack,  NY 
11725;  516-499-4010. 

Microware,  Box  79,  Kingston,  MA  02364;  617- 
746-7341. 

Miles  Consulting,  302  Board  of  Trade  Place, 

New  Orleans,  LA  70130;  504-561-002 7. 

Mini  Magic,  145  Steele  Road,  West  Hartford,  CT 
06119;  203-236-4960. 

MNC  Software  Sales,  511  -  11th  Avenue  South, 
Suite  429,  Minneapolis,  MN  55415;  612- 
333-4303. 

Monogram,  8295  South  La  Cienega  Boulevard, 
Los  Angeles,  CA  90301;  213-215-0529. 

Morgan  Computing,  10400  North  Central 

Expressway,  Suite  210,  Dallas,  TX  75231;  214- 
739-5839. 

Mosaic  Software,  1972  Massachusetts  Avenue, 
Cambridge,  MA  02140;  617-491-2434. 

Mountain  View  Press,  Box  4656,  Mountain 
View,  CA  94040;  415-961-4103. 

Multi-Tech  Systems,  82  Second  Avenue 

Southeast,  New  Brighton,  MN  55121;  612- 
631-3550. 

Muse  Software,  347  N.  Charles  Street, 

Baltimore,  MD  21201;  301-659-7212. 


N 

National  Field  Sales,  Box  230,  Bromall,  PA 
19008;  800-345-1280. 

Network  Consulting,  3700  Gilmore  Way,  Suite 
100,  Burnaby,  BC,  V5G  4MI  Canada;  604- 
430-3466. 

Newburyport  Computer  Associates,  Box  6082, 
Newburyport,  MA  01950;  617-462-9411. 

NewsNet,  945  Haverford  Road,  Bryn  Mawr,  PA 
19010;  800-345-1301,  in  PA  215-527-8030. 

New  York  Zoetrope,  80  East  11th  Street,  Suite 
516,  New  York,  NY  10003;  212-420-0590. 

B.  A.  Nicholson  and  Company,  271  Madison 
Avenue,  New  York,  NY  10016;  212-889-7536. 

Nissim  Associates,  2714  Pine  Street,  San 
Francisco,  CA  94115;  415-563-6170. 

Non-Linear  Products,  Box  14755,  Minneapolis, 
MN  55414. 

Norell  Data  Systems,  3400  Wilshire  Boulevard, 
Los  Angeles,  CA  90010;  213-257-2026. 

NorFork  Systems,  8  Norfork  Road,  Laurel 
Springs,  NJ  08021;  609-783-4483. 

North  America  MICA,  11772  Sorrento  Valley 
Road,  Suite  100,  San  Diego,  CA  92121;  619- 
481-6998. 

Northwest  Instrument  Systems,  Box  1309, 
Beaverton,  OR  97075;  800-547-4445  or  503- 
297-1434. 

Peter  Norton  Computing,  2210  Wilshire 
Boulevard,  Santa  Monica,  CA  90403;  213- 
399-3948. 

Novation,  20409  Prairie  Street,  Chatsworth,  CA 
91311;  213-996-5060. 

N-Squared  Computing,  5318  Forest  Ridge  Road, 
Silverton,  OR  97381;  503-873-5906. 

Number  Nine  Computer  Engineering,  Box  1802, 
Hartford,  CT  06144;  203-233-8134. 


o 

Oak  Tree  Computing,  481  Fairview  Avenue, 
Arcadia,  CA  91006;  213-508-7717. 

Oasis  Systems,  2765  Reynard  Way,  San  Diego, 
CA  92103;  619-222-1153. 


VISA  &  MC  orders,  call  toll  free  1-800-538-8157,  Ext.  967 
In  Calif.  1-800-672-3470,  Ext.  967 
Or  avoid  shipping  and  handling  charges  by  sending  your 
check  or  money  order  to  the  address  below: 

Please  send  me _ copies  of  CashMan  @  $39.95, 

each.  I  understand  that  I  will  receive  a  FREE  digital 
joystick  with  each  copy  of  CashMan  ordered. 

Name _ 


Street. 
City  _ 


.  State 


-Zip- 


Mail  To: 

Soft  Wares  And  Technology,  Ltd. 
P.O.  Box  7377,  Dept.  ST1  1 
Nashua,  NH  03060 


220 


Introducing 

A$HMAN 


The  latest  maze  craze  game  for  the  IBM  PC  from  S.W.A.T.,  Ltd. 

CashMan  is  a  game  of  skill,  strategy,  and  reflex,  for  one  or  two  players.  Imagine 
your  excitement  as  you  race  through  the  corridors  of  competition,  stuffing  your 
pockets  with  money.  But  WATCH  OUT  foryourfourcut-throat  competitors,  who 
will  snatch  your  money,  and  your  life,  if  they  can.  Or  pick  up  a  body  guard  and 
watch  your  enemies  turn  blue  and  flee,  while  you  grab  them  for  bonuses. 

Fora  limited  time  only,  Soft  WaresandTechnology,  Ltd.  isgiving  awaya 
FREE  joystickwith  every  purchase  of  CashMan.  Nowyou  will  beableto 
plug  this  high  quality,  practically  indestructible,  digital  joystick  directly 
into  your  IBM  (or  compatible)  game  controller,  and  be  ready  to  play 
CashMan  the  easy  way,  just  like  at  the  arcade. 


softalk 


Odesta,  3186  Doolittle  Drive,  Northbrook,  1L 
60062;  800-323-5423.  In  IL  312-498-5615. 

Omega  Micro  ware,  222  South  Riverside  Plaza, 
Chicago,  IL  60606;  312-M8-4844. 

Omni  Software  Systems,  146  North  Broad 
Street,  Griffith,  IN  46319;  219-924-3522. 

Omniware,  8972  East  Hampden  Avenue,  Denver, 
CO  80231;  303-750-9057. 

On-Line  Response,  327  South  LaSalle  Street, 
Suite  700,  Chicago,  IL  60604;  312-922-9423. 

On-Line  Software  International,  Two  Executive 
Drive,  Fort  Lee,  NJ  07024;  201-592-0009  or 
800-526-0272. 

Opportunities  for  Learning,  8950  Lurline 
Avenue,  Chatsworth,  CA  91311;  213- 
341-2535. 

Options-80,  Box  471-X,  Concord,  MA  01742; 
617-369-1589. 

Opt-Tech  Data  Processing,  Box  2167,  Humble, 
TX  77347;  713-454-7428 . 

Orchid  Technology,  47790  Westinghouse  Drive, 
Fremont,  CA  94539;  415-490-8586. 

OR-D  Systems,  1200B  Haddonfield  Road, 

Cherry  Hill,  NJ  08002;  609-665-2255. 

Orion  Software,  Box  2488,  Auburn,  AL  36831; 
800-821-8088. 

Orrington  Economics,  Box  3756,  Arlington,  VA 
22203;  703-527-5990. 

Osborne/ McGraw-Hill,  2600  Tenth  Street, 
Berkeley,  CA  94710;  415-548-2805. 

O'Sullivan  Industries,  19th  and  Gulf  Streets, 
Lamar,  MO  64759;  417-682-3322. 

Owl  Software,  6927  Atoll  Avenue,  North 
Hollywood,  CA  91605;  213-982-6243. 


p 

Pacific  Data  Systems,  6090  Sepulveda 
Boulevard,  Culver  City,  CA  90230;  213- 
559-8713. 

Pacific  Software,  2608  Eighth  Street,  Berkeley, 
CA  94710;  415-540-5000. 

Palantir,  3400  Montrose  Boulevard,  Suite  718, 
Houston,  TX  77006,  713-520-8221. 

Paper  Tractor,  One  South  Fairview,  Suite  C, 
Goleta,  CA  93117;  805-683-2851. 

PBL,  Box  559,  Wayzata,  MN  55391;  612- 
473-8998. 

PC  Clearing  House,  11781  Lee  Jackson  Highway, 
Fairfax,  VA  22033;  800-368-4422. 

PC-Demo,  1724  Sacramento  Street,  Suite  444, 

San  Francisco,  CA  94114;  415-974-5134. 

PC  Goodie,  15445  Ventura  Boulevard,  Suite  10, 
Sherman  Oaks,  CA  91413;  213-995-8565. 

PC  Products,  420  South  Beverly  Drive,  Suite 
207,  Beverly  Hills,  CA  90212;  213-277-8044. 

PCsoftware  of  San  Diego,  9120  Gramercy  Drive, 
Suite  416,  San  Diego,  CA  92133;  619- 
571-0981. 

PerfectData,  9174  Deering  Avenue,  Chatsworth, 
CA  91311;  213-998-2400. 

Performance  Engineered  Programming,  3970 
Syme  Drive,  Carlsbad,  CA  92008;  619- 
434-6023. 

Perma  Power  Electronics,  5615  West  Howard 
Street,  Chicago,  IL  60648;  312-647-9414. 

Personal  Computer  Accessories,  16625  Redmond 
Way,  Suite  107,  Redmond,  WA  98052;  206- 
882-0385. 

Personal  Computer  Journal,  West  2317  Garland, 
Spokane,  WA  99205. 

Personal  Computer  Products,  1400  Coleman 
Avenue,  C-18,  Santa  Clara,  CA  95050;  408- 
988-0164. 

Personal  Tutor  Associates,  Box  246,  Clinton, 

MD  20735;  301-856-2280. 


Persyst,  15801  Rockfield  Boulevard,  Suite  A, 
Irvine,  CA  92714;  714-859-8871. 

Picture  House,  166  Boynton  Boulevard,  Daytona 
Beach,  FL  32018;  800-874-3514,  in  FL  904- 
252-7970. 

Plantronics,  1751  McCarthy  Boulevard, 

Milpitas,  CA  95035;  800-638-6211. 

PMS,  650  Foothill  Boulevard,  La  Canada,  CA 
91011;  213-790-9054. 

Port-A-Soft,  423  East  800  North,  Orem,  UT 
84057;  801-226-6704. 

Precision  Data  Products,  Box  8332,  Grand 
Rapids,  MI  49508;  616-452-3457  or  800- 
632-2468. 

Prelude  Computer,  20380  Town  Center  Lane, 
Suite  217,  Cupertino,  CA  95014;  408- 
257-6033. 

Prentice-Hall,  Englewood  Cliffs,  NJ  07632;  201- 
592-2000. 

ProActive  Systems,  505  Channing  Avenue,  Palo 
Alto,  CA  94301;  415-326-2722. 

Prodata,  663  South  Capitol  Boulevard,  Boise,  ID 
83702;  208-342-6878. 

Professional  Management  Systems,  10824  North 
142nd,  Waverly,  NE  68462;  402-786-3636. 

Professional  Software,  51  Fremont  Street, 
Needham,  MA  02194;  617-444-5224. 

Programmed  Press,  2301  Baylis  Avenue,  Elmont, 
NY  11003;  516-775-0933. 

PRO/PAC,  14925A  Memorial  Drive,  Suite  207, 
Houston,  TX  77079;  713-496-1179. 

Psychotechnics,  1900  Pickwick  Avenue, 
Glenview,  IL  60025;  312-729-5250. 


Q 

QED  Information  Sciences,  170  Linden  Street, 
Wellesley,  MA  02181;  617-237-5656. 

QSI  Software,  Box  3-231  ECB,  Anchorage,  AK 
99501;  907-349-1189. 

Quadram,  4355  International  Boulevard, 
Norcross,  GA  30093;  404-923-6666. 

Quala,  23026  Frisca  Drive,  Valencia,  CA  91355; 
805-255-2922. 

Quality  Software,  21601  Marilla,  Chatsworth, 
CA  91311;  213-344-6599. 

Qubie  Distributing,  4809  Calle  Alto,  Camarillo, 
CA  93010;  805-482-9829. 

Quest  Research,  303  Williams  Avenue, 

Huntsville,  AL  35801;  205-533-9405  or  800- 
558-8088. 

Qume,  2350  Qume  Drive,  San  Jose,  CA  95131; 
408-942-4000. 


R 

RB  Robot,  18301  West  Tenth  Avenue,  Suite  310, 
Golden,  CO  80401;  303-279-5525. 

ReadiWare  Systems,  Box  680,  West  Redding,  CT 
06896;  203-431-3521. 

Realty  Software,  1926  South  Pacific  Coast 
Highway,  Suite  229,  Redondo  Beach,  CA 
90277;  213-372-9419. 

Rebel  Software,  1440  Quince,  Denver,  CO 
80220. 

Resolution  Software,  8  Edgewood  Boulevard, 
Providence,  RI  02905;  401-461-2417. 

Reston  Publishing,  11480  Sunset  Hills  Road, 
Reston,  VA  22090;  703-437-8900. 

Reymont  Associates,  6556  Sweet  Maple  Lane, 
Boca  Raton,  FL  33433;  305-483-4343. 

RGB  Display,  22525  Kingston  Lane,  Grass  Valley, 
CA  95945;  916-268-2222. 

R.&H.  Electronics,  566  Irelan,  Buellton,  CA 
93427;  805-688-204 7. 


RKS  Industries,  4865  Scotts  Valley  Drive,  Scotts 
Valley,  CA  95066;  408-438-5760. 

Rogue  River  Software,  2822  Tahitian  Avenue, 
Medford,  OR  97504;  503-779-3002. 

RoseSoft,  4710  University  Way  Northeast,  Suite 
601,  Seattle,  WA  98105;  206-524-2350. 


5 

Safeware,  Box  02211,  Columbus,  OH  43202; 
800-848-3469,  in  OH  800-848-2112. 

Howard  W.  Sams,  4300  West  62nd  Street, 
Indianapolis,  IN  46268;  317-298-5419. 

Sapana  Micro  Software,  1305  South  Rouse, 
Pittsburg,  KS  66762;  316-231-5023. 

Satellite  Software  International,  288  West 
Center  Street,  Orem,  UT  84057;  800- 
321-5906. 

Satori  Software,  5507  Woodlawn  North,  Seattle, 
WA  98103;  206-633-1469. 

Savant,  Box  440278,  Houston,  TX  77244;  713- 
556-8363  or  800-231-9900. 

Scarborough  Systems,  480  California  Avenue, 
Suite  206,  Palo  Alto,  CA  94306;  415- 
327-3280. 

Scion,  12310  Pinecrest  Road,  Reston,  VA  22091; 
703-476-6100. 

Screen  Data,  240  Cedar  Knolls  Road,  Cedar 
Knolls,  NJ  07927;  201  285-1212. 

S-C  Software,  2331  Gus  Thomasson  Road,  Suite 
125,  Dallas,  TX  75228;  214-324-2050. 

Seattle  Computer  Products,  1114  Industry 
Drive,  Seattle,  WA  98188;  206-575-1830,  in 
WA  800-426-8936. 

Secure-It,  East  Longmeadow,  MA  01028;  413- 
525-7039. 

Security  Microsystems  Consultants,  16  Flagg 
Place,  Suite  102X,  Staten  Island,  NY  10304; 
212-667-1019. 

SEI,  2360J  George  Washington  Highway, 
Yorktown,  VA  23692;  804-898-8386. 

Select  Information  Systems,  919  Sir  Francis 
Drake  Boulevard,  Kentfield,  CA  94904;  415- 
459-4003. 

Sensor-based  Systems,  15  East  Second  Street, 
Chatfield,  MN  55923;  507-867-4440. 

Sentient  Software,  Box  4929,  Aspen,  CO  81612; 
303-925-9293. 

Seybold  Publications,  Box  644,  Media,  PA 
19063;  215-565-2480. 

Siechert  &  Wood  Technical  Publications,  133 
West  Colorado  Boulevard,  Pasadena,  CA 
91105;  213-449-1276. 

Sierra  On-Line,  Sierra  On-Line  Building, 
Coarsegold,  CA  93614;  209-683-6858. 

Silver  Soft,  200  W.  Douglas,  Suite  1000,  Wichita, 
KS  67202;  316-262-1040. 

Simple  Soft,  480  Eagle  Drive,  Suite  101,  Elk 
Grove,  IL  60007;  312-364-0752. 

SimSoft,  Box  7095,  Port  Huron,  MI  48301;  313- 
984-1570. 

Sirius,  10364  Rockingham  Drive,  Sacramento, 
CA  95827;  916-366-1195. 

Smith  Educational  Engineering  Services,  Box 
244,  Arlington  Heights,  IL  60006;  312- 
359-9696. 

Smith  Micro  Software,  Box  604,  Sunset  Beach, 
CA  90742;  213-592-1032. 

Sofstar,  13935  US  Highway  1,  Juno  Beach,  FL 
33408;  305-627-5511. 

Softcraft,  Box  9802,  #590,  Austin,  TX  78766; 
512-346-8380. 

SofTech  Microsystems,  16885  West  Bernardo 
Drive,  San  Diego,  CA  92127;  619-451-1230. 

Soft-Life,  2950  Los  Feliz  Boulevard,  Suite  103, 

Los  Angeles,  CA  90039;  213-660-7940. 


for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


221 


An  Epson  FX 
Without 
Set-FX 
is  Like  a 
Porsche 
Without 
a  Key 


Your  Epson 
FX  printer  is 
a  powerful 
machine.  Alas, 
getting  into 
the  driver’s  seat  isn't  always  easy. 
Set-FX  software  lets  you  and  your . 
IBM  PC  take  your  FX  for  a  real  tour. 
It’s  as  simple  as  touching  a  key  and 
taking  off. 

With  Set-FX,  you  can  now  con¬ 
veniently: 

■  Print  those  missing  IBM  characters 
as  they  appear  on  the  screen,  in¬ 
cluding  block  and  line  graphics, 
foreign  characters,  and  math  & 
science  symbols. 


■  Set  print  modes  to  condensed, 
emphasized,  italics,  proportional,  and 
50  more.  Control  Margins. 

■  Create  your  own  typefaces  for 
logos,  forms,  and  unique  styles. 


■  Explore  your  FX’s  capabilities  with 
our  FX-ldeas  program,  Instructional 
Manual,  and  Quick  Reference  Card. 


Race  away  with  Set-FX  ...  it  prints 
in  full-speed  text  mode! 

At  last,  you  get  the  printer  control, 
IBM  character  set,  custom  typefaces, 
and  high-speed  printing  in  one 
comprehensive  package. 

For  the  key  to  great  performance 
from  your  Epson  FX,  ask  your  dealer 
or  order  direct.  Price  $59.95 


SoftStyle,  Inc. 

Suite  200,  Dept.  Dll 
7192  Kalanianaole  Hwy. 
Honolulu,  Hawaii  96825 
(808)  396-6368 


rlr 

SoftStyle' 

For  the  IBM  PC  or  COMPAQ  with  Epson  FX-80 
or  FX-100,  DOS  1,1  or  2.0.  Works  with  most  word 
processors  and  spreadsheets.  MC  or  VISA 
accepted.  Add  $2.00  for  handling. 


Softrend,  617  West  Main  Street,  Charlottesville, 
VA  22902;  804-979-8194. 

Softsmith,  1431  Doolittle  Road,  San  Leandro, 

CA  94577;  415-430-2411. 

Software  Arts,  27  Mica  Lane,  Wellesley,  MA 
02181;  617-237-4000. 

Software  Connections,  1800  Wyatt  Drive,  Suite 
17,  Santa  Clara,  CA  95054;  408-998-3704. 

The  Software  House,  Box  11174,  Honolulu,  HI 
96828;  808-734-5801. 

Softwarehouse  International,  802  Twelfth 
Avenue,  Menomonie,  WI  57451;  715- 
235-3126. 

Software  Labs,  1052  Lily  Avenue,  Sunnyvale, 

CA  94086;  408-241-9539. 

Software  Products  International,  10240  Sorrento 
Valley  Road,  San  Diego,  CA  92121;  619- 
450-1526. 

Software  Publishing,  1901  Landings  Drive, 
Mountain  View,  CA  94043;  415-962-8910. 

Software  Solutions,  305  Bic  Drive,  Milford,  CT 
06460;  203-877-9269  or  800-243-5123. 

Software  Technology,  153  California  Street, 
Newton,  MA  02158;  617-923-4334. 

Softword  Systems,  52  Oakland  Avenue  North, 
East  Hartford,  CT  06108;  203-522-2116. 

Solutions,  13  State  Street,  Montpelier,  VT  05602; 
802-229-0368. 

Solveware,  Box  1246,  Redondo  Beach,  CA 902 78. 

Source  Telecomputing,  1616  Anderson  Road, 
McLean,  VA  22101;  703-734-7500. 

Spectrum  Software,  690  West  Fremont  Avenue, 
Sunnyvale,  CA  94087;  408-738-4387. 

Spies  Laboratories,  Box  336,  Lawndale,  CA 
90260;  213-644-3200. 

Spinnaker  Software,  215  First  Street,  Cambridge, 
MA  02142;  617-868-4700. 

SSR,  1600  Lyell  Avenue,  Rochester,  NY  14606; 
716-254-3200. 

Staff  Computer  Technology,  10457J  Roselle 
Street,  San  Diego,  CA  92121;  619-453-0303. 

Star  Logic,  20860  Plummer  Street,  Chatsworth, 
CA  91311,  213-883-05 87. 

Starside  Engineering,  Box  18309,  Rochester,  NY 
14618;  716-461-1027. 

Star  Software  Systems,  20600  Gramercy  Place, 
Torrance,  CA  90501;  213-538-2511. 

State  of  the  Art,  3183-A  Airway  Avenue,  Costa 
Mesa,  CA  92626;  714-850-0111. 

Station  Products,  Box  90898,  Los  Angeles,  CA 
90009;  213-641-1319. 

Statistical  Computing  Consultants,  10037 
Chestnut  Wood  Lane,  Burke,  VA  22015;  703- 
250-9513. 

Stone  and  Associates,  7910  Ivanhoe  Avenue, 
Suite  319,  La  Jolla,  CA  92037;  619-459-9173 
or  800-624-2262. 

StorWares,  1849  East  65th  Street,  Cleveland,  OH 
44108;  800-421-4637,  in  OH  216-881-2424. 

StratCom  Systems,  1010  Turquoise  Street,  Suite 
242,  San  Diego,  CA  92109;  619-488-2262. 

STSC,  2115  East  Jefferson  Street,  Rockville,  MD 
20852;  301-984-5000. 

Summagraphics,  35  Brentwood  Avenue, 

Fairfield,  CT  06430;  203-384-1344. 

Sunburst  Communications,  39  Washington 
Avenue,  Pleasantville,  NY  10570;  914-769- 
5030  or  800-431-1934. 

Sundex  Software,  3000  Pearl  Street,  Boulder,  CO 
80301;  303-440-3600. 

Sun  Research,  Box  210,  New  Durham,  NH 
03855;  603-859-7110. 

Sunward  Systems,  655  West  Irving  Park  Road, 
Chicago,  IL  60613;  312-935-5702. 

Superex  International  Marketing,  151  Ludlow 
Street,  Yonkers,  NY  10705;  800-862-8000,  in 
NY  914-964-5200. 


SuperSoft,  Box  1628,  Champaign,  IL  61820;  217- 
359-2112. 

Sybex,  2344  Sixth  Street,  Berkeley,  CA  94710; 
415-848-8233. 

Sydney  Development,  600-1385  West  Eighth 
Street,  Vancouver,  BC  V6H  3V9  Canada;  604- 
734-8822. 

Symmetric  Software,  1805  Clemson  Street,  San 
Bernardino,  CA  92407;  714-887-8595. 

Sysgen,  47853  Warm  Springs  Boulevard, 

Fremont,  CA  94539;  415-490-6770. 

Systech,  5410  Baylor  Drive,  Bartlesville,  OK 
74006;  918-333-9693. 

Systemathica,  4732  Wallingford  Street, 
Pittsburgh,  PA  15213;  412-621-8362. 

Systemics,  3050  Spring  Street,  West  Bloomfield, 
Ml  48033;  313-851-2504. 

Systems  Design  Lab,  2612  Artesia  Boulevard, 
Suite  B,  Redondo  Beach,  CA  90278; 
213-374-4471. 

Systems  Management  Associates,  3700 

Computer  Drive,  Raleigh,  NC  27609;  919- 
787-7703. 

Systems  Plus,  1120  San  Antonio  Road,  Palo 
Alto,  CA  94303;  415-969-7047. 


T 

Tall  Tree  Systems,  1032  Elwell  Court,  Suite  124, 
Palo  Alto,  CA  94303;  415-324-9238. 

Tamtron,  1538  Lincoln  Avenue,  San  Jose,  CA 
95125;  408-288-8292. 

T&W  Systems,  7372  Prince  Drive,  Suite  106, 
Huntington  Beach,  CA  92647;  714-847-9960. 

Tarrtec  Enterprises,  28  August  Crescent, 
Commack,  LI,  NY  11725;  516-543-6579. 

Taurus  Software,  3155  Kearney,  Suite  100, 
Fremont,  CA  94538;  415-490-3643. 

Taxcalc,  4210  West  Vickery,  Fort  Worth,  TX 
76107;  817-738-3122. 

Tax  Man,  Drawer  W,  Huntsville,  A1  35804;  205- 
533-7590. 

TCI  Software,  6107  West  Mill  Road,  Flourtown, 
PA  19031;  215-836-1406. 

TCS  Software,  3209  Fondren  Road,  Houston, 
TX  77063;  713-977-7505. 

Tech  Designs,  3638  Grosvenor  Drive,  Ellicott 
City,  MO  21043;  301-291-0818. 

Tech  Sketch,  26  Just  Road,  Fairfield,  NY  07006; 
800-526-2514. 

Tecmar,  6225  Cochran  Road,  Solon,  OH  44139; 
216-349-0600. 

1040  Software,  10  Nevada  Drive,  New  Hyde 
Park,  NY  11042;  516-775-5566. 

Term  Computer  Services,  Box  725,  New 
Providence,  NJ  07974;  201-665-0923. 

Tesserax,  Box  1996,  Homosassa  Springs,  FL 
32647. 

TexaSoft,  3415  Westminster,  Suite  100,  Dallas, 
TX  75205;  214-369-0795. 

3M/Data  Recording  Products,  223-SN  3M 
Center,  Saint  Paul,  MN  55144;  612- 
733-9022. 

Time  Accountant,  636  Waverly  Street,  Palo 
Alto,  CA  94301;  415-328-7877. 

Titan  Technologies,  Box  8050,  Ann  Arbor,  MI 
48107;  313-973-8422. 

T/Maker,  2115  Landings  Drive,  Mountain  View, 
CA  94043;  415-962-0195. 

Total  Logic,  343  West  Drake,  Suite  110,  Fort 
Collins,  CO  80526;  303-226-5980. 

Trace  Systems,  900  Stierlin  Road,  Mountain 
View,  CA  94043;  800-24TRACE,  in  CA  415- 
964-3116. 

Transend,  2190  Paragon  Drive,  San  Jose,  CA 
95131. 


222 


softalk 


Tran  star/ Vivi  tar  Computer  Products,  Box  G- 
96975,  Bellevue,  WA  98009;  206-454-9250, 
Turning  Paint  Software,  11 A  Main  Street, 
Watertown,  M A  02172;  617-923-4441, 


u 

United  Software  of  America,  750  Third  Avenue, 
New  York,  NY  10017;  212-682-0347, 

Universal  Barter,  8462  Sunset  Boulevard,  Suite 
104,  Los  Angeles,  CA  90069;  800-672-3506, 

Universal  Computer  Products,  Box  4229,  Irvine, 
CA  92716;  714-786-3244. 

Universal  Data  Systems,  5000  Bradford  Drive, 
Huntsville,  Ai  35805;  205-837-8100. 

User-Friendly  Software,  Box  1192,  Melville,  NY 
11747;  516-643-6618 

US  Robotics,  1123  West  Washington  Boulevard, 
Chicago,  IL  60607;  312-733-0497. 


1/ 

Vandata,  17544  Midvale  Avenue,  North,  Seattle, 
WA  98133;  206-542-7611  or  80CM26-5248, 
Verba  Gloria,  802  Twelfth  Avenue,  Suite  B, 
Menomonie,  WI  54751;  715-235-3126, 
Verbatim,  323  Soquel  Way,  Sunnyvale,  CA 
94086;  408-245-5500. 

Versa  Computing,  3541  Old  Cone  jo  Road,  Suite 
104,  Newbury  Park,  CA  91320;  805-498-1956, 
Vertex  Systems,  7950  West  Fourth  Street,  Los 
Angeles,  CA  90048;  213-938-0857, 

Virtual  Combinattcs,  Box  755,  Rockport,  MA 
01966;  617-546-6553, 

Visionary  Electronics,  141  Parker  Avenue,  San 
Francisco,  CA  94118;  415-751-8811. 

Visual  Horizons,  180  Metro  Park,  Rochester,  NY 
14623;  716-424-5300, 

VM  Personal  Computing,  60  East  42nd  Street, 
New  York,  NY  10165;  212-697-4747, 

V  R  Data,  777  Henderson  Boulevard,  Folcroft, 
PA  19032;  800-345-8102,  in  PA  215-461-5300. 

WXYZ 

Wadsworth  Electronic  Publishing,  10  Davis 
Drive,  Belmont,  CA  94002;  415-594-1900. 
Walonick  Associates,  5624  Girard  Avenue 
South,  Minneapolis,  MN  55419; 

612-866-9022, 

Waterloo  Microsystems,  175  Columbia  Street 
West,  Waterloo,  Ontario  N2L  5Z5  Canada; 
519-884-3141. 

WattsOuL  2020  South  Oneida,  Suite  201, 

Denver,  CO  80224,  303^795-3880. 

Weber  Systems,  8437  Mayfield  Road, 

Chested  and,  OH  44026;  216-729-2858, 

Weiss  Associates,  127  Michael  Drive,  Red  Bank, 
N]  07701;  201-530-9260  , 

West  Coast  Consultants,  1775  Lincoln 

Boulevard,  Tracy,  CA  95376;  209-835-1780, 
WIDL  Video  Publications,  5245  West  Diversey 
Avenue,  Chicago,  I L  60639;  312-622-9606. 
Wildfire  Publishing,  One  South  Fairview,  Suite 
t  Goleta,  CA  93117;  805-967-8444, 

John  Wiley  &  Sons,  605  Third  Avenue,  New 
York,  NY  10158;  212-850-6000. 

Williams  &  Foltz  Computer  furniture,  1816 
Fourth  Street,  Berkeley,  CA  94710; 
415-644-2022, 

Window,  469  Pleasant  Street,  Watertown,  MA 
02172;  800-852-5001,  in  MA  617-923-9147, 
The  Wood  Works,  Eleventh  &  Haskell, 

Lawrence,  KS  66044;  913-842-77 97, 


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THE  PROFIT 


by  Jack  Grushcoio 


T 

*  (  his  month  we'll  continue  our  exploration  of 

L  the  key  financial  ratios*  Having  covered  the 

two  liquidity  ratios  last  time,  we're  now 
“* '  ready  to  move  on.  The  next  major  group  of 

ratios  to  discuss  are  those  connected  with  a  company's  long-term  debt. 
Later  in  this  installment,  we'll  consider  two  other  categories  of  ratio: 
those  related  to  a  company's  efficiency  and  profitability. 

The  Widget  Manufacturing  Company  balance  sheet  and  income 
statement  from  last  month  are  reproduced  here  for  your  reference.  The 
examples  presented  in  this  installment  will  use  data  from  these  financial 
statements. 

Analyzing  Long-term  Debt 

The  financial  ratios  in  this  group  are  of  interest  to  investors  and  lenders 
who  are  attempting  to  decide  whether  a  long-term  investment  in  or 
loan  to  a  company  is  advisable.  The  specific  ratios  that  fall  into  this 
category  are  debt  to  equity,  "times  interest  earned/'  and  asset  coverage. 
These  three  ratios  are  useful  for  determining  how  easily  a  company  can 
pay  off  its  long-term  debt  and  for  examining  its  present  mix  of  financ¬ 
ing. 

Debt/Equity.  In  addition  to  generating  income  through  the  sale  of 
products  and  services,  a  company  has  two  other  ways  of  raising 
money:  It  can  borrow  money  and  it  can  issue  stock.  Borrowing  money 
creates  additional  debt,  while  issuing  stock  creates  additional  equity.  If 
you  can  discover  how  a  company  mixes  these  two  types  of  financing, 
you  stand  to  learn  a  good  deal  about  how  its  managers  think. 

A  company  that  needs  to  borrow  a  large  sum  of  money  for  more 
than  a  year  s  time  may  issue  either  a  bond  or  a  debenture  to  raise  the 
required  capital.  This  creates  a  commitment  on  the  part  of  the  com¬ 
pany  to  repay  both  principal  and  interest  to  the  debt  holder  over  a 
prescribed  period  of  time  at  a  prescribed  rate  of  interest. 

A  bond  pledges  specific  assets  to  cover  the  promise  to  pay  while  a 
debenture  is  a  loan  unsecured  by  any  specific  assets.  Since  most  corpo¬ 
rate  borrowing  of  this  kind  takes  the  form  of  debentures,  the  ratios 
wt'U  discuss  are  those  that  help  measure  the  relative  sincerity  of  a  com¬ 
pany's  promise  to  pay. 

The  alternative  to  borrowing  is  equity  financing.  This  term  refers  to 
capital  that  has  been  raised  through  the  issuance  of  corporate  stock* 
Like  borrowing,  equity  financing  is  a  way  for  a  company  to  raise 
money  to  fund  further  long-term  growth  and  development. 

The  two  major  types  of  stocks — common  and  preferred— come  in 
many  different  varieties,  each  with  its  own  set  of  investor-inducing  fea¬ 
tures,  Shareholders  are  actually  part  owners  of  the  company  and  par¬ 
ticipants  in  its  growth.  They  agree  to  forego  the  guarantee  of  periodic 
dividend  payments  in  exchange  for  being  allowed  to  take  part  in  the 
company's  future  growth, 

A  key  difference  between  debt  financing  and  equity  financing  is  that 


Long-term  Debt,  Efficiency  and 
Profitability 

the  interest  payments  on  debt  must  be  paid  regularly,  regardless  of  how 
well  a  company  does.  Even  if  a  company  has  several  bad  years,  the 
interest  on  its  debentures  must  still  be  paid  or  the  company  can  be 
forced  into  liquidation. 

WIDGET  MANUFACTURING  COMPANY 
Balance  Sheet  (in  thousands) 

December  31,  1982 

ASSETS 


1.  Cash 

20,500 

2.  Receivables 

46,500 

3,  Inventory 

37,000 

4*  Deferred  Taxes  (current) 

6,000 

5*  Total  Current  Assets 

110,000 

6,  Investments 

1,000 

7.  Property  Plant,  and  Equipment 

298,000 

8.  Accumulated  Depreciation 

201,000 

9,  Net  Property  Plant,  and  Equipment 

98,000 

10.  Goodwill 

5,000 

11 ,  Total  Assets 

213,000 

LIABILITIES 

12*  Accounts  Payable 

38,500 

13.  Income  Tax 

11,000 

14.  Long-term  Debt  (due  within 
one  year) 

3,500 

15.  Total  Current  Liabilities 

53,000 

16,  Long-term  Debt 

49,000 

17,  Deferred  Income  Tax 

11,000 

18.  Total  Liabilities 

113,000 

SHAREHOLDERS'  EQUITY 

19.  Preferred 

12,500 

20,  Common 

54,000 

21.  Retained  Income 

33,500 

22*  Total  Shareholders'  Equity 

100,000 

23.  Total  Liabilities  and 

Shareholders'  Equity 

213,000 

Figure  1 , 


In  the  case  of  equity  financing,  its  up  to  a  company's  board  of  direc¬ 
tors  to  decide  whether  the  common  or  the  preferred  shareholders  will 
receive  dividends.  In  years  of  poor  performance,  when  profits  are  slim 
or  nonexistent,  a  company's  directors  may  elect  not  to  pay  dividends, 
retaining  company  earnings  for  more  urgent  requirements.  And  in 
some  cases,  even  when  performance  has  been  good,  a  company  may 


for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


decide  not  to  pay  dividends.  This  can  happen  when  a  company  expects 
to  need  cash  for  new  business  expansion  or  when  building  a  larger  cash 
reserve  against  anticipated  lean  times  is  considered  a  priority. 

In  other  words,  equity  capitalization  does  not  necessarily  cost  the 
company  money  year  in  and  year  out  the  way  debt  capitalization  does. 
This  means  that  equity  capitalization  does  add  flexibility  to  financial 
planning.  But  you  pay  for  what  you  get:  Equity  capitalization  is  more 
expensive  to  raise  than  debt. 

This  brings  us  to  an  examination  of  the  debt  /equity  ratio.  The 
greater  the  ratio  of  debt  to  equity,  the  greater  the  risk  to  the  common 
and  preferred  shareholders.  And  when  you're  deciding  whether  to  be¬ 
come  a  shareholder  in  a  company,  you  want  to  know  the  degree  of  risk 
such  an  investment  would  involve. 

Debt  holders  must  be  paid  the  interest  they're  entitled  to  before  the 
shareholders  get  dividends.  Should  a  company  go  under,  its  debt  hold¬ 
ers  also  have  prior  claim  on  assets.  The  larger  a  company's  debt,  the 
smaller  the  level  of  protection  its  shareholders  will  get  should  the  worst 
happen.  The  ratio  of  debt  to  equity  tells  shareholders  just  how  far  back 
in  line  they  stand  for  company  earnings. 


WIDGET  MANUFACTURING  COMPANY 
Income  Statement  (in  thousands) 

For  year  ended  December  31,  1982 


24.  Net  Sales 

249,000 

25.  Cost  of  Goods  Sold 

215,500 

26.  General  and  Administrative 

18,000 

27.  Depreciation 

3,500 

28.  Total  Operating  Costs 

237,000 

29.  Operating  Income 

12,000 

30.  Interest  and  Debt  Expense 

(3,500) 

31.  Investment  and  Other  Income 

2,500 

32.  Income  before  Taxes 

11,000 

33.  Provision  for  Income  Tax 

3,100 

34.  Net  Income 

7,900 

Consolidated  Statement  of  Retained  Income 

For  the  years  ended  December  31,  1982 

35.  Retained  Income  (beginning) 

31,700 

36.  Net  Income 

7,900 

Dividends 

37.  Preferred 

800 

38.  Common  (2,500,000  outstanding) 

5,300 

39.  Retained  Income 

33,500 

Figure  2 . 

In  the  case  of  Widget  Manufacturing,  the  following  calculation  can 
be  made: 

Debt /Equity  Ratio  =  Total  Long-term  Debt  /  Shareholders'  Equity 
(Book  Value) 

=  Item  16  /  Item  22 
=  49,000  /  100,000 
=  0.5 

For  a  manufacturing  company,  a  debt /equity  ratio  of  1:1  is  considered 
an  upper  limit.  Widget  Manufacturing  is  comfortably  below  this  sug¬ 
gested  maximum. 

A  company  with  a  high  debt /equity  ratio  has  a  greater  commitment 
to  pay  interest  charges  than  one  with  a  lower  ratio.  In  times  of  eco¬ 
nomic  difficulty,  such  a  company  may  have  its  hands  full  just  taking 
care  of  interest  payments;  never  mind  paying  salaries,  suppliers,  or 
shareholder  dividends. 

'Times  Interest  Earned."  The  next  of  the  long-term  solvency  ratios  is 


the  times-interest-eamed  ratio.  This  ratio  indicates  how  well  a  com¬ 
pany  can  afford  to  pay  the  interest  costs  on  its  debt,  based  on  what  it 
earns. 

Times  Interest  Earned  =  Earnings  Before  Tax  /  Interest  Charges 
=  Item  32  /  Item  30 
=  11,000  /  3,500 
=  3.1 

According  to  this  calculation,  Widget  Manufacturing's  times-interest- 
eamed  ratio  is  about  3:1.  In  other  words,  the  company  earns  three 
times  the  amount  of  interest  it  needs  to  service  its  long-term  debt.  Man¬ 
ufacturing  companies  should  earn  interest  payments  at  least  three  times 
over,  so  Widget's  ratio  is  on  the  lower  end  of  our  range. 

The  larger  the  earnings  cushion,  the  safer  the  lenders'  and  the  share¬ 
holders'  investments.  For  a  company  to  merit  your  serious  investment 
consideration,  it  should  be  earning  a  good  deal  more  than  its  annual 
commitment  to  debt  holders. 

Asset  Coverage.  Next  on  our  agenda  is  the  asset  coverage  ratio. 
This  ratio  helps  to  fill  in  the  long-term  solvency  picture  for  the  deben¬ 
ture  holders  and  other  lenders  by  indicating  the  amount  of  assets  that 
secure  a  company's  long-term  debt. 

Remember,  a  debenture  is  an  unsecured  loan,  backed  only  by  a 
company's  general  assets  and  earning  power.  Potential  lenders  need  to 
know  what  percentage  of  a  company's  assets  is  available  to  cover  the 
loan. 

Asset  Coverage  =  Net  Tangible  Assets  /  Long-term  Debt 

=  Item  11  —  Item  10  —  Item  15  —  Item  17  /  Item  16 
=  213,000  -  5,000  -  53,000  -  11,000  /  49,000 
=  144,000  /  49,000 
=  2,939 

This  calculation  tells  us  that  for  each  $1,000  of  long-term  debt,  Widget 
has  $2,939  of  assets. 

Notice  that  to  calculate  net  tangible  assets,  we  subtract  good  will, 
deferred  tax,  and  current  liabilities.  This  gives  us  a  better  picture  of  the 
true  value  of  the  company's  available  assets.  It's  pretty  hard  to  sell  off  a 
company's  good  will  to  cover  what  may  be  owed. 

The  guideline  for  manufacturing  companies  is  that  there  should  be 
at  least  $2,000  worth  of  assets  for  each  $1,000  worth  of  long-term  debt. 
Widget  again  passes  inspection,  but  not  by  a  large  margin.  As  with  the 
other  ratios,  we'll  get  better  information  by  comparing  Widget  to  an¬ 
other  manufacturer  in  its  own  specific  industry. 

In  reviewing  Widget's  long-term  solvency  ratios,  we  noted  that  both 
"times  interest  earned"  and  asset  coverage  are  close  to  the  suggested 
limits.  We  might  want  to  examine  the  financial  condition  of  its  competi¬ 
tors  to  see  whether  this  is  typical  for  the  industry.  If  not,  then  Widget's 
low  ratios  would  provide  a  focus  for  further  research. 

A  potential  bond  holder  might  well  find  a  more  solid-looking  invest¬ 
ment  candidate  than  Widget.  However,  it  may  be  that  if  Widget  were  to 
offer  a  new  debenture  its  new  interest  rate  would  be  attractive  enough 
to  compensate  for  its  slightly  higher  risk  level.  This  again  can  be  deter¬ 
mined  only  by  examination  of  other  companies  in  the  same  industry. 

Efficiency  Ratios 

The  next  set  of  ratios  we'll  look  at  measure  management  efficiency  in 
certain  key  areas.  The  inventory  and  accounts  receivable  turnover  ra¬ 
tios  are  important  here.  We'll  also  examine  the  ratio  of  sales  to  working 
capital. 

Inventory  Turnover.  The  inventory  turnover  ratio  measures  how 
many  times  a  year  a  company  turns  over  (sells  totally)  its  current  in¬ 
ventory.  This  ratio  provides  a  good  indication  of  management's  ability 
to  design,  produce,  and  market  a  product  that's  in  demand. 

A  company  with  an  above-average  inventory  turnover  rate  shows  a 
balance  between  inventory  levels  and  sales  volume.  This  company  is 
less  likely  to  be  caught  with  a  backlog  of  inventory  in  difficult  eco¬ 
nomic  times  than  a  company  with  a  lower  inventory  turnover  rate. 


226 


softcilk 


If  a  company  shows  a  higher  inventory  turnover  ratio  than  its  com¬ 
petition,  you  can  credit  management  with  a  superior  product  mix  or 
excellent  sales  and  marketing  departments.  These  are  attributes  of  an 
above-average  corporation. 

A  lower-than-average  inventory  turnover  may  indicate  that  a  com¬ 
pany  s  inventory  contains  a  large  portion  of  slow-moving  or  unsalable 
goods  or  that  poor  sales  forecasting  resulted  in  overproduction.  A  com¬ 
pany  in  this  position  incurs  heavy  interest  and  other  carrying  charges 
associated  with  inventories,  and  these  charges  eat  into  profit  margins. 
We  discussed  the  importance  of  working  capital  earlier.  When  a  large 
part  of  a  company's  working  capital  is  tied  up  in  inventory,  it  means 
that  funds  are  not  free  for  other  uses — such  as  reducing  debt,  plant 
expansion,  and  paying  dividends.  A  comparatively  low  inventory 
turnover  ratio  is  cause  for  concern . 

We  can  determine  Widget  s  inventory  turnover  rate  by  means  of  the 
following  calculation: 

Inventory  Turnover  —  Cost  of  Goods  Sold  /  Inventory 
=  Item  25  /  Item  3 
=  215,500  /  37,000 
-  5.8 

Widget  turns  over  its  inventory  5.8  times  per  year.  This  inventory 
turnover  can  also  be  expressed  in  days:  365  /  5.8  =  63  days. 

There's  no  standard  yardstick  that  can  be  used  to  evaluate  this  ratio; 
it  differs  too  much  from  one  industry  to  another.  Useful  insights  can  be 
gained  only  by  comparing  a  company's  performance  to  that  of  its  com¬ 
petitors. 

Accounts  Receivable  Turnover,  The  next  management  efficiency  ra¬ 
tio  well  consider  tells  us  how  rapidly  a  company  is  able  to  turn  over— 
that  is,  collect— its  receivables. 

With  prevailing  interest  rates  making  the  financing  of  receivables  so 
expensive,  improving  the  rate  of  collections  should  be  a  management 
priority.  A  long  collection  period  is  indicative  of  a  poorly  mn  credit 
department.  The  size  of  the  accounts  receivable  and  the  quickness  with 
which  they  are  collected  also  have  an  important  impact  on  working 
capital  A  longer  collection  period  means  that  more  funds  get  tied  up 
financing  customer  purchases  and,  in  addition,  the  percentage  of  bad 
debts  begins  to  increase. 

To  calculate  the  accounts  receivable  ratio  for  Widget  Manufactur¬ 
ing,  we  proceed  as  follows: 

Accounts  Receivable  Turnover  =  (Accounts  Receivable  *  365)  /  Sales 

=  (Item  2  *  365)  /  Item  24 
=  (46,500  *  365)  /  249,000 
=  68  days 

Since  credit  terms  differ,  this  ratio  will  also  vary  from  one  industry  to 
another.  Many  industrial  companies  take  up  to  sixty  days  to  collect 
their  accounts  receivable.  It  seems  that  the  Widget  Manufacturing 
takes  even  longer  than  this,  indicating  that  there  is  room  for  improve¬ 
ment.  Obviously,  the  shorter  a  company's  average  collection  period, 
the  better. 

Sales  to  Working  Capital.  The  final  efficiency  ratio  we'll  look  at  is 
computed  by  dividing  sales  into  working  capital.  This  ratio  shows  us 
how  well  management  is  making  use  of  working  capital;  the  more 
effectively  working  capital  is  used,  the  better. 

For  Widget,  the  ratio  of  sales  to  working  capital  is: 

Sales  /  Working  Capital  =  Item  24  /  (Item  5  —  Item  15) 

=  249,000  /  (110,000  -  53/000) 

=  249,000  /  57,000 
=  4.4 

Each  dollar  of  Widget's  working  capital  can  generate  $4.40  of  sales. 
When  used  to  compare  companies  in  the  same  industry  the  ratio  of 
sales  to  working  capital  can  help  you  spot  management  that  makes  the 
best  use  of  its  working  capital. 

Many  efficiency  ratios  can  be  applied  only  to  specific  industries.  If 
you're  a  restaurateur,  for  example,  you  might  want  to  know  how  many 


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for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


227 


times  you  turn  over  a  table  in  an  evening.  If  you're  the  manager  of  an 
airline,  you  might  like  to  know  how  much  revenue  is  generated  for 
each  passenger  mile  flown;  knowing  this  could  help  you  set  more  com¬ 
petitive  ticket  prices.  These  special  efficiency  ratios  can  be  very  reveal¬ 
ing  when  you're  comparing  companies.  And  watch  for  them  in 
industry  reports;  they  provide  valuable  clues  to  good  investment  op¬ 
portunities. 

Profitability  Ratios 

The  last  set  of  ratios  we'll  examine  are  those  designed  to  measure  corpo¬ 
rate  profitability.  As  the  most  commonly  used  ratios,  this  group  proba¬ 
bly  attracts  the  most  attention.  The  profitability  ratios  are  those 
dealing  with  gross  profit  margin,  net  profit  margin,  return  on  common 
equity,  earnings  per  share,  and  price/eamings.  Each  ratio  examines  a 
different  corporate  area  to  see  how  profitably  it  is  being  run. 

Profitability  ratios  can  help  you  evaluate  whether  a  company  would 
make  a  good  investment.  In  addition,  they  provide  valuable  informa¬ 
tion  to  company  managers  or  owners  who  want  to  keep  track  of  their 
own  operating  efficiency. 

Gross  Margin.  We'll  begin  by  looking  at  the  gross  profit  margin. 
This  percentage  tells  us  how  much  profit  a  company  earns,  expressed  as 
a  percentage  of  sales.  It  shows  whether  product  pricing  is  such  that  the 
company  can  run  at  a  profit,  and  it  is  also  used  when  competitive  com¬ 
panies  in  the  same  industry  are  being  compared;  those  with  the  highest 
ratios  provide  the  most  attractive  investment  possibilities. 

Gross  Profit  Margin  = 

(Net  Sales  —  (Cost  of  Goods  Sold  +  Depreciation)  /  Net  Sales)  * 
100 

=  (Item  24  —  (Item  25  +  Item  27)  /  Item  24)  *  100 

=  (249,000  -  (215,500  +  3,500)  /  249,000)  *  100 


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SOFTWARE  PRINTER  SPOOLER 

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copy  command.  Disk  can  also  be  made  a  “bootable"  disk  by  the 
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v _ _ _ _ _ 


=  (30,000  /  249,000)  *  100 

=  12.0% 

Notice  that  in  the  numerator  of  this  ratio  we  include  depredation  as 
a  cost  of  goods  sold.  This  helps  represent  the  true  cost  of  manufacturing 
a  product. 

For  a  manufacturer,  Widget  shows  a  relatively  low  profit  margin, 
and  this  will  affect  its  overall  profitability.  A  potential  investor  or  a 
motivated  manager  might  want  to  investigate  the  reasons  for  this  low 
margin;  one  possible  cause  is  inappropriate  product  pricing. 

Net  Profit  Margin.  The  net  profit  margin  is  calculated  in  a  similar 
way.  This  ratio  reflects  a  company's  performance  after  all  operating 
costs  have  been  deducted. 

While  the  gross  margin  shows  how  well  management  can  turn  over 
its  product  at  a  profit,  the  net  margin  measures  how  well  management 
runs  the  entire  business  operation.  This  includes  the  cost  of  running 
such  areas  as  sales  and  administration  as  well  as  distribution  and  mar¬ 
keting. 

To  make  a  comparison  between  different  companies  meaningful,  the 
earnings  figure  must  be  taken  before  minority  interests  and  extraordi¬ 
nary  items  have  been  accounted  for;  many  companies  do  not  have  sub¬ 
sidiaries,  and  extraordinary  items  are  not  truly  indicative  of  a 
business's  regular  operations. 

Net  Profit  Margin  = 

(Net  Profit  (Before  minority  interests  and  extraordinary  items)  /  Net 
Sales)  *  100 

=  (Item  34  /  Item  24)  *  100 
=  (7,900  /  249,000)  *  100 
=  3.2% 

The  difference  between  the  gross  profit  margin  and  the  net  profit 
margin  is  that  gross  profit  margin  evaluates  a  company's  management 
solely  on  the  basis  of  operating  performance.  By  the  time  you  get  down 
to  the  net  profit  line,  nonoperating  factors  such  as  debt  expense  have 
been  deducted.  Gross  operating  margin  may  show  that  management 
may  be  doing  a  good  job  of  handling  production  operations,  and  yet 
the  net  profit  margin  may  be  poor.  This  situation  could  be  the  result  of 
heavy  financing  expense,  or  it  could  be  caused  by  some  other  non¬ 
operating  factor. 

Our  gross  and  net  margin  calculations  for  Widget  were  12.0  percent 
and  3.2  percent  respectively.  By  examining  these  two  ratios,  we  can 
determine  whether  specific  areas  of  the  company's  operation  are  below 
par. 

Return  on  Common  Equity.  The  net  return  on  common  equity  is 
another  way  of  seeing  how  hard  a  company  makes  its  cash  work.  If 
you're  a  common  shareholder,  this  statistic  will  be  especially  near  and 
dear  to  your  heart. 

Net  return  on  common  equity  shows  the  earnings  created  by  each 
dollar  of  equity  that  shareholders  have  invested  in  a  company.  If  you're 
thinking  about  investing  in  a  company,  you'll  be  looking  for  one  that 
earns  a  good  return  for  its  shareholders. 

Net  Return  on  Common  Equity  = 

(Net  Profit  before  Extraordinary  Item  less  Preferred  Dividends  / 
Common  Equity)  *  100 

=  (Item  34  —  Item  37  /  Item  20  +  Item  21)  100 
=  (7,900  -  800  /  54,000  +  33,500)  *  100 
=  (7,100  /  87,500)  *  100 
=  8.1% 

The  better  the  return  on  common  equity,  the  better  the  job  manage¬ 
ment  is  doing  of  using  the  equity  owned  by  the  common  shareholders. 

Earnings  Per  Share.  Another  measure  of  business  profitability  is  the 
eamings-per-share  ratio.  This  helps  shareholders  in  a  company  predict 
whether  the  board  of  directors  of  a  company  is  going  to  pay  dividends. 

This  ratio  finds  the  annual  earnings  left  over  for  the  common  share¬ 
holders,  then  divides  this  amount  by  the  number  of  common  shares 
outstanding  to  arrive  at  the  earnings  per  common  share.  If  these  eam- 


228 


% 


softcilk 


ings  are  high,  a  company's  directors  are  more  likely  to  pay  dividends. 
They  realize  that  most  shareholders  like  to  feel  that  some  of  the  profits 
are  flowing  back  into  their  pockets,  and  as  a  result  they  try  to  pay 
dividends  when  possible. 

To  calculate  this  ratio,  we  proceed  this  way: 

Earnings  Per  Share  = 

Net  Profit  Before  Extraordinary  Item  less  Preferred  Dividends  / 
Number  of  Common  Shares  Outstanding 
=  Item  34  -  Item  37  /  2,500 
=  7,900  -  800  /  2,500 
=  7,100  /  2,500 
=  $2.84 

Widget  was  able  to  earn  $2.84  for  each  share  of  common  stock  out¬ 
standing.  If  the  annual  dividend  was  $1.00  per  share,  then  the  earnings 
of  $2.84  per  share  will  cover  the  expense  quite  well. 

Companies  with  a  long  tradition  of  paying  dividends  will  often  con¬ 
tinue  paying  them  through  good  times  and  bad.  But  a  company  has  to 
earn  the  dividends  at  some  point.  If  it  doesn't  manage  to  do  this,  it  will 
either  have  to  stop  paying  dividends  eventually  or  go  broke.  If  a  com¬ 
pany  has  not  earned  its  dividends  but  has  continued  to  pay  them  over 
several  years,  that  can  be  an  indication  that  investors  who  require  regu¬ 
lar  income  should  steer  clear. 

Price /Earnings.  The  price-to-eamings  ratio  is  the  final  ratio  we'll 
consider.  It  is  used  by  potential  investors  to  add  more  meaning  to  the 
eamings-per-share  figures  calculated  for  various  companies. 

Direct  comparison  of  different  companies  based  on  their  straight 
eamings-per-share  figures  can  be  confusing  and  misleading  because 
common  share  prices  vary  from  company  to  company.  For  instance, 
company  A  may  earn  $2  per  share  with  its  stock  priced  at  $20  per 
share,  while  company  B  earns  $1  per  share  with  its  stock  selling  for  $10 
per  share.  Though  company  As  earnings  are  twice  those  of  company  B, 
the  shares  of  each  company  represent  equal  value.  You  have  to  pay 
twice  the  price  for  As  stock;  in  the  end,  you  have  paid  the  same  price 
for  a  dollar  of  earnings. 

Suppose  that  Widget  common  stock  is  currently  trading  at  $12.  To 
eliminate  the  price  factor,  the  price /earnings  ratio  for  Widget  is  calcu¬ 
lated  as  follows: 

Price /Earnings  Ratio  =  Current  Price  of  Stock  /  Earnings  Per  Share 
=  12.00  /  2.84 
=  4.22 

If  you  were  to  return  to  companies  A  and  B  and  use  this  formula  to 


calculate  their  price/eamings  ratios,  you'd  find  those  ratios  to  be  iden¬ 
tical,  even  though  one  company  earns  twice  what  the  other  does. 

By  looking  at  the  price/eamings  ratio  for  Widget,  we  are  able  to 
learn  that  the  market  is  willing  to  pay  $4.22  for  a  dollar's  worth  of 
Widget  earnings.  When  the  price/eamings  (or  P/E)  ratios  of  companies 
are  being  compared,  a  higher  ratio  indicates  that  the  market  is  more 
positive  about  the  future  earnings  potential  of  a  company.  In  other 
words,  the  average  investor  is  willing  to  accept  (and  pay  for)  a  high  P/E 
ratio  for  a  company's  earnings  today  because  future  prospects  look 
even  better. 

Summary 

Sifting  through  financial  statements  searching  for  useful  facts  is  hard 
but  rewarding  work.  Ratios  can  help  us  get  to  the  bottom,  or  at  least 
closer  to  the  bottom,  of  how  well  a  company  is  being  managed  and 
what  its  prospects  are  for  the  future. 

We've  divided  ratios  up  into  four  main  groups,  looking  at  a  compa¬ 
ny's  liquidity,  long-term  solvency,  efficiency,  and  profitability.  We  used 
the  financial  statements  of  Widget  Manufacturing  company  in  order  to 
practice  calculating  the  various  ratios,  and  we  also  discussed  ways  to 
interpret  results  above  and  below  industry  averages. 

The  limitations  to  the  usefulness  of  ratios  were  discussed.  Because  of 
their  importance,  we'll  state  them  again  here: 

•  Since  the  balance  sheet  of  a  company  represents  a  snapshot  in  time 
on  only  one  day  of  the  year,  and  since  the  income  statement  represents 
only  one  year  of  corporate  operation,  conclusions  based  on  ratios  are 
more  reliable  if  several  years  of  financial  data  are  used  and  trends  in 
ratios  are  examined. 

•  Acceptable  ranges  for  ratios  are  only  guidelines,  and,  like  the  ra¬ 
tios  themselves,  indicate  general  information,  not  facts  etched  in  stone. 

•  Only  ratios  of  companies  in  similar  industries  should  be  com¬ 
pared. 

•  It's  important  to  stop  and  think  about  what  a  ratio  actually  says 
about  the  company  in  question.  Be  sure  you  look  before  you  leap  to 
any  conclusions. 

•  If  investing  is  your  key  aim  in  employing  these  ratios,  don't  act 
before  you  ask  an  investment  professional's  opinion.  You  may  be  miss¬ 
ing  something. 

Next  month — what  we've  all  been  waiting  for.  We'll  build  the  finan¬ 
cial  spreadsheet  containing  all  thirteen  ratios  and  use  it  to  examine  a 
real  live  company.  Tell  your  friends.  ▲ 


LETTER  QUALITY  FOR  YOUR  DOT-MATRIX! 


Normal  matr i x :  ABCDEFGHI JKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdef gft i j K 1 mnopqr s t uvwxyz 1234 

With  PROFONT®:  ABCDEFGHIJKlJ^OPQRSTUVWXYZabcdef ghi jklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1234 


PROFONT  software  uses  the  graphics  feature  of  your  dot-matrix 
printer  to  print  crisp,  clear,  standard-sized  pica  characters  that  are 
astonishingly  close  in  quality  to  those  produced  by  expensive  letter 
quality  printers.  Letters,  spreadsheets,  program  listings,  or  any 
other  disk  file  can  now  be  printed  with  outstanding  clarity  and 
definition,  right  on  your  existing  dot-matrix  printer.  Full  continuous 
underlining,  boldface,  subscripts,  and  superscripts  are  easily  con¬ 
trollable  from  the  leading  word  processing  programs,  including 
WordStar  and  Volkswriter.  The  supplied  96-character  pica  typeface 
can  be  redesigned  on  your  computer’s  screen  to  match  foreign 
language  or  scientific  character  sets.  No  special  codes  need  be 
inserted  into  the  file  to  be  printed.  PROFONT  can  print  any  ASCII 
DOS  disk  file  directly,  including  those  from  WordStar,  Volkswriter, 
Condor,  D-Base  II,  Visicalc,  or  SuperCalc. 

PROFONT  requires  an  IBM  PC  with  at  least  64kb  of  memory,  DOS 


1.1  or  higher,  and  one  of  the  following  printers:  EPSON  FX  or  MX 
series  with  Graftrax  Plus,  IBM  Matrix  Printer  with  Graphics 
Option,  C-Itoh  Prowriter  8510  or  1550,  or  the  NEC  8023A  Dot- 
Matrix  Printer. 

To  order,  see  your  local  computer  dealer  or  order  direct  for  $95.00, 
including  all  postage  and  handling.  MasterCard,  VISA,  or  check  ac¬ 
ceptable.  Please  specify  target  printer  and  software.  Information  re¬ 
quests  welcomed.  Dealer  inquiries  invited. 

PROFONT,  WordStar,  Volkswriter,  Condor,  D  Base  II,  Visicalc,  Supercalc,  and  IBM  are 
registered  trademarks  of  Hammerlab  Inc.,  MicroPro  International  Inc.,  Lifetree  Software  Inc., 
Condor  Computer  Inc.,  Ashion-Tate  Inc.,  Visicorp,  Supersoft  Inc.,  and  IBM  Corporation 
respectively. 

HAMMERLAB  Inc. 


for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


229 


FROM  BEGIN  TO  END 


ast  month  we  started  a  series  of  columns  on 
file  handling  in  Pascal  and  looked  at  char- 
acteristics  specific  to  IBM  Pascal.  This 
month  we'll  take  a  look  at  UCSD  Pascal 
and  the  p-System,  examining  the  implementations  from  IBM  and  Net¬ 
work  Consulting  (Burnaby,  B.C,  Canada).  The  column  covers  five 
major  topics:  disk  file  I/Or  random  access  I/O,  untyped  Kies,  device 
I/Or  and  error  handling. 

Disk  Files.  UCSD  Pascal  runs  under  the  p-System,  its  own  operating 
system,  rather  than  under  MS-DOS  orCP/M-86.  As  such,  files  created 
by  UCSD  Pascal  programs  can  be  read  only  by  other  UCSD  Pascal 
programs.  Also,  UCSD  Pascal  programs  can  only  read  files  created  by 
other  UCSD  Pascal  programs.  However,  the  p- System  put  out  by  Net¬ 
work  Consulting  (NCI)  comes  with  a  filer  utility  and  a  unit  for  program 
use  that  permit  access  to  MS-DOS  files  from  the  p-System. 

Disk  files  created  by  the  p-System  have  two  characteristics  that  dis¬ 
tinguish  them  from  MS-DOS  files.  First,  the  p-System  allocates  disk 
files  in  bfocks,  chunks  of  disk  space  that  hold  512  bytes  each.  For  exam¬ 
ple,  a  double-sided,  320K  disk  would  be  divided  up  into  640  blocks. 

Second,  all  the  blocks  in  a  file  are  contiguous;  that  is,  they  follow 
one  after  the  other  For  example,  if  a  hie  were  ten  blocks  long  and 
started  at  block  150,  it  would  occupy  blocks  150  through  159,  These 
two  characteristics  tend  to  waste  disk  space,  but  they  make  for  a  simple 
and  predictable  method  of  file  handling,  and  they  can  be  helpful  in  low- 
level  file  access  (see  the  section  on  untyped  files  later  in  the  column). 

A  filename  can  be  up  to  fifteen  characters  in  length  and  can  include 
just  about  any  printable  ASCII  character  (although  certain  ones  should 
be  avoided  for  special  reasons).  You  can  also  tack  an  optional  volume 
specification  on  the  front  of  the  filename.  This  can  be  the  actual  volume 
number  ("0<nn>:")  or  the  volume  name  ("(name) :"),  which  can  be  up 
to  seven  characters  in  length  itself.  Thus,  a  given  file  specification  can 
have  a  maximum  length  of  twenty-three  characters.  Here  are  some 
sample  filenames: 

STARS. TEXT 

ALL, STARS. DATA 

£4:SYSTEM.MI5CINFO 

LONGEST :  FILE.  NAMES  .EVER 

Last  month  you  worked  with  a  sample  program  that  opened  a  text- 
file,  read  in  numeric  data,  opened  a  binary  file  and  wrote  the  data  out 
to  it,  then  closed  both  files,  deleting  the  texthle.  Here's  the  same  exam¬ 
ple  rewritten  for  UCSD  Pascal: 

CONST 

in  filename  =  '5TARS.TEXT'; 

outfilename  ~  'STARS. DATA'; 

TYPE 

stars  =  ARRAYfl..3|  OF  real; 


by  Bruce  Webster  and  Deirdre  Wendt 


P-System  File  Handling 

{  (1]  =  x,  [2]  =  y,i31  =  z} 

VAR 

infile  :  text; 

out  file  :  FILE  OF  stars; 

x,y,z  :  real; 

BEGIN 


reset(infile, infilename);  {  open  to  read  } 

rewrifce(outfile,outfilename);  {  open  to  write  } 
WHILE  NOT  eof  (infile)  DO  BEGIN 


readln(x,y,z); 

{  read  in  values  } 

outfile*(ll  :=  x; 

{  copy  to  file  variable  } 

outfile*  [2]  :  =  y; 
outfile ^[3]  :=  z; 
put(outfile) 

{  write  out  to  disk  } 

END; 

closed  nfile,  purge); 

{  remove  textfile  } 

cl  o  se  ( outfile ,  lock ) 

{  dose  and  save  data  file 

END.  {  of  PROGRAM  convert  } 

Unlike  IBM  Pascal,  UCSD  Pascal  doesn't  need  a  separate  assign 
step  to  open  a  file,  instead,  you  simply  include  the  filename  in  the  re¬ 
write  or  reset  statement.  The  close  statement  takes  the  form 
closef  (  file  )  [ ,  (  option  )  ]); 

where  ( option )  is  an  optional  command  that  tells  the  system  what  you 
want  done  with  the  file.  Here  are  the  options  and  their  effects: 

normal  don't  save  any  data  written  to  the  file;  that  is,  (file) 
was  a  temporary  file.  This  is  the  default:  dose(f)  — 
cl  ose(f,  normal). 

lock  save  the  data  written  out  to  (file)  as  a  disk  file, 
purge  delete  the  disk  file  associated  with  (file  variable), 
crunch  same  as  lock,  but  throws  away  all  of  the  file 
following  the  last  record  read  or  written. 

Incidentally,  when  you  rewrite  a  hie  that  already  exists  on  the  disk, 
the  original  is  left  untouched  until  you  close  the  file  with  the  lock  op¬ 
tion.  At  that  time,  the  original  file  is  deleted  and  the  new  Hie  is  entered 
into  the  disk  directory  with  the  proper  name.  This  provides  a  simple 
mechanism  for  updating  an  existing  Hie  without  worrying  about  file¬ 
names. 

Random  Access  I/O.  You  may  want  to  read  and  write  data  in  a  hie 
in  a  nonsequential  or  random  manner.  For  example,  having  created  the 
file  Stars. data,  vou  might  want  to  retrieve  the  coordinates  of  a  given 
star  without  (I )  reading  the  entire  list  of  stars  into  memory  or  (2)  reset¬ 
ting  the  hie  and  reading  through  all  the  preceding  stars  to  get  to  the  one 
you  want.  The  ability  to  read  (or  write)  directly  to  any  record  in  a  file 
regardless  of  its  location  is  called  random  access. 

UCSD  Pascal  allows  you  to  have  random  access  to  a  file  by  opening 
it  with  reset ,  then  using  the  seek  command  to  move  it  to  a  given  posi- 


230 


softnlk 


tion  in  the  file.  For  example,  if  you  wanted  to  open  a  star  data  file  so 
that  you  could  read  the  coordinates  for  any  given  star,  the  program  you 
might  use  would  look  like  this: 

PROGRAM  look  — at —  stars; 

TYPE 

stars  =  ARRAY[1..3]  OF  real; 

VAR 

datafile  ;  FILE  OF  stars; 

x,y,z  :  real; 

starindex  ;  integer; 

BEGIN 

reset(datafile /STARS.  DATA'); 

REPEAT 

write('Enter  star  §  (0  to  exit):  '); 

readln(starindex); 

IF  starindex  >  0  THEN  BEGIN 
seek(datafile, starindex  +  1);  {  move  to  the  star  } 
get  (datafile);  {  and  read  it  in  } 

write('Coordinates  of  star  #',starin dex:3/:  '); 
write('(',  datafile"  [1]:12:4//, datafile*  [2]:12:4, 
"datafile*  [3]:12:4/)') 

END 

UNTIL  starindex  <  =  0; 

do  se(  da  tafile,  lock ) 

END. 

The  seek  statement  moves  us  to  a  specific  record  in  a  file.  The  first 
record  is  record  ^0 — that  is,  seek((file},0)  would  point  at  the  first  re¬ 
cord  in  <file>. 

There  are  a  few  restrictions  on  using  seek.  First,  it  can't  be  used  with 
a  textfile  (text,  interactive,  or  FILE  OF  char)  or  an  untyped  file.  Second, 
you  should  always  make  a  call  to  get  or  put  between  any  two  calls  to 
seek;  otherwise  you  have  no  guarantee  about  the  contents  of  < file) . 
Last,  if  you  call  seek  with  a  negative  value  or  a  value  greater  than  the 
number  of  records  in  the  file,  the  next  call  to  get  or  put  will  cause  the 
system  function  eof((file))  to  return  true. 

Untyped  Files.  All  the  UCSD  Pascal  files  we've  looked  at  have  been 
textfiles  (=  FILE  OF  char)  or  data  files  (=  FILE  OF  <type>).  However, 
there  are  times  when  you  want  to  deal  with  raw  data,  data  that  haven't 
been  formatted.  For  example,  in  a  computer  game  you  need  to  have 
many  different  types  of  data  out  on  the  disk.  However,  you  don't  want 
the  overhead  of  having  several  files  open  at  once  or  having  to  open  and 
close  files  constantly. 

The  solution?  You  put  everything  in  one  large  disk  file  and  use  an 
untyped  file  to  access  it.  An  untyped  file  is  declared  as  follows: 

VAR 

bigfile  :  FILE; 

It's  opened  and  closed  just  like  any  other  file.  Reading  from  and  writing 
to  it  are  different,  though,  from  other  files. 

Untyped  files  can  only  be  read  or  written  a  block  (512  bytes)  at  a 
time.  You  do  this  using  two  functions,  blockread  and  blockwrite. 
Here's  their  format: 

bent  :=  blockread(<  file  ),<buf),<mtmblks)[,<  offset)]); 

We  listed  only  one,  because  the  other  has  exactly  the  same  parame¬ 
ters.  <file>  is,  of  course,  the  untyped  file  variable  (such  as  bigfile 
above).  <buf>  can  be  any  type  of  variable;  however,  it  had  better  be  at 
least  512  bytes  in  size,  or  your  program  will  do  bizarre  things. 
<numblks>  is  an  integer  value  giving  the  number  of  blocks  you  wish  to 
read  (or  write).  This  value  makes  further  requirements  on  the  size  of 
<buf>,  namely  that  <buf>'s  size  be  greater  than  or  equal  to  512* 
<numblks>. 

The  last  parameter,  <  offset),  is  optional.  If  you  don't  specify  it,  you 
will  begin  at  the  start  of  the  file  and  proceed  through  to  the  end.  If  you 
do  use  it,  you  will  start  reading  from  (or  writing  to)  the  file  at  the  block 


you've  specified.  This  allows  you  to  access  an  untyped  file  randomly 
(since  you  can't  use  the  seek  command).  Both  the  blockread  and  block- 
write  functions  return  the  number  of  blocks  really  read  (or  written)  as  a 
check  for  hitting  the  end  of  the  file  or  some  disk  error. 

Let's  look  at  an  example.  Suppose  that  blocks  10  through  13  of  your 
data  file  contain  records  that  are,  for  convenience'  sake,  thirty-two 
bytes  each.  Each  block  thus  has  sixteen  of  these  records  in  it,  and  there 
are  sixty-four  records  in  all.  You  could  then  write  the  following  routine 
to  get  or  put  a  specific  record  (numbered  0  through  63)  from  that  chunk 
of  the  file.  Call  the  record  type  goodrec  and  assume  that  your  untyped 
file  (bigfile)  is  already  open. 

PROCEDURE  goodrec  — IO(indx  :  integer; 

read  :  boolean; 

VAR  rec  :  goodrec); 

{ 

does  read /write  for  record[indx],  where  indx  is  in  the  range 
0..63 

and  the  records  are  found  in  blocks  10..  13  of  bigfile 

if  read  =  true,  then  reads  record,  else  writes  it 

} 

VAR 

bcnt,iblk,irec  :  integer; 

data  :  PACKED  ARRAY[0..15]  OF  goodrec; 

BEGIN 

indx  :  =  abs(indx)  MOD  64;  {  force  to  allowable  range  } 

iblk  :  =  indx  DIV  16  +  10;  {  calculate  block  #  } 

irec  :  =  indx  MOD  16;  {  calculate  rec  w/in  block  } 

bent  :  =  blockread  (bigfile,  data,  1 ,  iblk);  {  get  the  data  } 

IF  read 

THEN  rec  :  =  data[irec]  {  get  appropriate  record  } 
ELSE  BEGIN 

data[irec]  :  =  rec;  {  else  save  it  in  'data'  } 

bent  :=  blockwrite(bigfile,data,l,iblk)  {  &  write  it  } 

END 

END;  {  of  PROC  goodrec  _IO  } 

By  writing  similar  routines  for  the  other  data  types  stored  in  bigfile, 
you  can  have  ready  access  (and  random  access,  at  that)  to  a  wide  vari¬ 
ety  of  data  types  with  a  minimum  of  overhead.  If  the  size  of  the  buffer 
(512  bytes  or  some  multiple  thereof)  bothers  you,  you  can  always  use 
mark,  new,  and  release  to  create  it  on  the  heap  and  then  get  rid  of  it. 

Device  I/O.  Most  applications  require  I/O  involving  the  computer 
hardware  itself.  Reading  from  the  keyboard  and  writing  out  to  the 
screen  are  the  two  most  obvious  examples.  Standard  (and  UCSD)  Pas¬ 
cal  predefines  the  textfiles  input  and  output  for  just  those  functions.  All 
read  and  write  statements  without  a  file  variable  use  these  two  files.  But 
there  are  other  times  when  you  might  want  to  read  from  or  write  to  a 
specific  device.  How  do  you  do  this? 

Simple:  Use  a  set  of  special  filenames  that  refer  to  hardware  devices 
rather  than  to  disk  files.  For  example,  suppose  you  wanted  to  modify 
Convert  so  that  you  could  enter  the  data  manually  instead  of  having  it 
read  from  a  disk  file.  You  would  simply  change  the  string  constant 
infilename  to  read  'CONSOLE:'.  You  would  then  enter  the  data,  line  by 
line.  When  you  were  done,  you'd  type  control-C;  this  tells  the  program 
it's  reached  the  end  of  the  file. 

By  the  same  token,  a  program  that  writes  a  textfile  to  disk  could  be 
redirected  to  write  the  output  to  the  screen.  Note  well:  Because  these 
are  character-oriented  devices,  only  files  of  type  text  or  interactive 
should  be  connected  with  them. 

Here's  a  list  of  the  special  filenames  that  UCSD  Pascal  recognizes: 
CONSOLE:  console  I/O — that  is,  read  from  the 

keyboard  and  write  to  the  screen 
SYSTEM:  like  CONSOLE:,  but  doesn't  echo 

characters  read  in 


for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


231 


PRINTER:  the  line  printer 

REMIN:,REMOUT:  input  from  and  output  to  an  RS-232 

(serial)  port.  Note  that  these  are  handled 
as  two  separate  devices. 

Associated  with  these  special  filenames  are  device  numbers  that  can 
be  used  in  one  of  two  ways.  First,  the  string  '#<devnum>  •  can  be  sub¬ 
stituted  for  '<  filename):'.  For  example,  the  line  printer  is  device  number 
6,  so  that  you  could  say  rewrite(outfile/#6:')  instead  of  rewrite(outfile , 
‘PRINTER:’).  Second,  you  can  use  the  device  number  for  the  low-level 
I/O  routines  unitclear,  unitread ,  and  unitwrite: 

unitdear(devnum)  makes  the  device  think  that  the 

computer  has  just  been  turned  on 
unitread  (devnum,buf,len,blknum,  flag) 

reads  <len>  bytes  from  <devnum> 
into  <buf>.  If  <devnum>is  a  block- 
oriented  device  (that  is,  a  disk)  then 
starts  at  <blknum>.  If  <flag>  =  2, 
then  reads  one  physical  sector 
starting  at  <blknum>.  <blknum> 
and  <flag>  are  optional. 
unitwrite(devnum,buf,len,blknum,flag) 

just  like  unitread,  but  writes  instead 


4  boot  disk  drive 

5  second  disk  drive 

6  PRINTER: 

7  REMIN: 

8  REMOUT: 

9  —  12  more  disk  drives;  #11:  is  default  RAM  disk  for 

IBM  UCSD  implementation,  while  #12:  is 
default  RAM  for  NCI  version 

13  —  26  used  by  NCI  for  subsidiary  volumes  (sub¬ 

directories  on  disks) 

Error  Handling.  There  are  few  things  more  irritating  than  having  a 
program  blow  up  because  you  entered  the  wrong  filename  or  because 
the  program  ran  out  of  space  on  the  disk.  UCSD  Pascal  automatically 
generates  error-checking  code  when  you  compile  a  program.  However, 
you  can  turn  off  the  generation  of  such  code  with  a  compiler  switch.  If 
you  insert  the  comment  {$1—  }  into  your  program,  the  compiler  will 
no  longer  generate  I/O  checks  until  it  encounters  the  comment  {$1 4- } . 
This  prevents  your  program  from  halting  should  an  error  occur.  How¬ 
ever,  you  still  need  to  know  what  the  error  was.  The  p-System  tells  us 
via  the  function  ioresult,  which  returns  an  integer  value  indicating 
what  the  error  was.  Here's  a  list  of  the  error  codes: 


Here's  a  list  of  the  standard  device  numbers,  along  with  some  extensions: 

dev  num  device 

1  CONSOLE: 

2  SYSTEM: 

3  (unused— was  GRAPHIC:  in  original 

p-System  implementation) 


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error  code  meaning 
0  no  error 

1  bad  block— parity  error 

2  illegal  device  number 

3  illegal  I/O  request 

4  datacom  time  out 

5  volume  is  no  longer  on-line 

6  file  is  no  longer  in  directory 

7  illegal  filename 

8  not  enough  room  on  volume 

9  no  such  volume  on-line 

10  file  not  found 

11  duplicate  directory  entry 

12  file  already  open 

13  file  already  closed 

14  bad  value  format  (real  or  integer) 

15  read  past  end  of  file 

16  volume  is  write-protected 

17  illegal  block  number 

18  illegal  buffer 

For  example,  you  might  modify  Convert  to  prompt  for  an  input 
filename  and  test  to  see  if  the  file  really  exists: 

{$i  — }  {  turn  off  I/O  error  checking  } 

REPEAT 

write('Enter  name  of  data  file:  ');  readln( filename); 
re  set(  infile,  filename); 

tval  :  =  ioresult;  {  get  error  code  } 

IF  tval  >  0 

THEN  writeln('Error  on  opening  file:  ',tval) 

UNTIL  tval  =  0; 

{$i-f- }  {  turn  I/O  error  checking  back  on  } 

If  you  wanted  to  get  more  explicit,  you  could  write  a  procedure  that 
would  give  us  a  more  informative  error  message  based  on  the  value  of 
Tval,  like  the  procedure  we  showed  last  month  for  IBM  Pascal. 

Conclusion.  That  should  be  enough  to  keep  you  going  on  UCSD 
Pascal.  We  had  thought  of  tackling  Modula-2,  but  there  are  so  many 
differences  that  it  warrants  a  future,  separate  column.  Next  month, 
we'll  continue  to  discuss  file  I/O,  looking  at  the  specifics  of  Pascal/ 
MT4-  from  Digital  Research.  See  you  then.  A 


232 


softcilk 


One  year  after  introducing  the  first  trans- 
portable  "clone''  of  the  IBM  Personal  Com¬ 
puter,  Compaq  Computer  Corporation  has 
released  a  new  product  that  follows  the  lead— 
if  not  the  schematic — of  another  Big  Blue  prod¬ 
uct.  At  a  news  conference  in  New'  York  on 
October  25,  the  company  announced  the 
Compaq  Plus,  a  transportable  version  of  the 
pc-XT,  complete  with  a  ten-megabyte  Win¬ 
chester  disk. 

Apart  from  its  Winchester  controller  card 
and  disk  drive,  the  Plus  is  in  every  obvious  re¬ 
spect  identical  tn  the  original  Compaq  .  It  has  a 
single  5  1 /4-inch  double-sided  disk  drive  in  the 
A  position  (the  company  apparently  decided 
that  implementing  a  pair  of  half-height  flop¬ 
pies,  thereby  surpassing  the  XT  in  convenience 
and  functionality  would  not  be  a  wise  move), 
128K  of  RAM  (with  room  for  an  additional 
12SK),  and  a  single  adapter  card  for  both 
monochrome  and  graphics  display.  Like  the 
original  Compaq,  the  Plus  in  its  standard  con¬ 
figuration  offers  two  expansion  slots,  a  parallel 
printer  port,  and  connections  for  output  to  an 
RGB  monitor,  a  composite  video  monitor,  and 
(byway  of  an  RF  modulator)  a  standard  televi¬ 
sion  set.  Like  the  pc,  the  original  Compaq,  and 
the  XT,  the  Compaq  Plus  is  shipped  with  an 
empty  socket  for  the  Intel  8087  floating-point 
processor. 

Unlike  the  XT,  the  Compaq  Plus  does  not 
come  with  an  asynchronous  commumcations 
card;  Plus  owners  can  buy  one  from  Compaq 
for  an  extra  5115.  According  to  Compaq 
spokesman  Ken  Price,  a  survey  indicated  that 
'many  users  don't  require"  the  communica¬ 
tions  capability,  so  the  asynch  card  was  made 
optional. 

Along  with  the  Compaq  Plus,  the  company 


announced  that  its  begun  shipping  MS-DOS 
2,0  and  BasicA  2,0  Compaq  owners  have 
been  able  all  along  to  buy  and  use  DOS  2,0  as 
supplied  by  IBM;  now  they  can  get  it  under 
Compaq's  label 

Retail  price  for  the  new  machine,  with  128K 
and  no  asynch  adapter,  has  been  set  at  $4,995 


The  Winchester  dnife  in  the  Compaq  Plus  has 
been  designed  with  a  s/TOcCabsorfrmy  mount  for 
the  rigors  of  travel. 


An  upgrade  kit,  which  enables  owners  of  the 
original  Compaq  to  retrofit  their  machines 
with  the  hard  disk  and  controller  card,  is  avail¬ 
able  for  £2,500. 

There  are  some  differences  between  the  XT 
and  the  Compaq  Plus.  One  is  the  addition  of 


"shock  protection  mounting,"  consisting  of  a 
frame  of  crossed  aluminum  strips  covering  the 
CPU,  video  display,  and  the  disk  drives  The 
company's  promotional  literature  stresses  the 
durability  of  the  frame  and  of  the  machine's 
outer  housing,  which  is  made  of  Lexan,  a  plas¬ 
tic  used  for  bulletproof  partitions. 

The  Compaq  Plus  weighs  in  at  thirty-one 
pounds,  three  pounds  heavier  than  a  standard 
Compaq  equipped  with  a  single  floppy  disk 
drive  but  a  pound  less  than  a  two-floppy  Com¬ 
paq.  The  Winchester  drive  weighs  a  little  less 
than  a  floppy  drive. 

At  the  same  news  conference,  Compaq  an¬ 
nounced  it  has  filed  papers  with  the  Securities 
and  Exchange  Commission  seeking  to  sell  six 
million  shares  of  common  stock  in  a  public 
offering.  Underwriting  the  sale  are  L.  F.  Roths¬ 
child,  Unterberg,  Towbin,  and  E.  F.  Hutton. 
Compaq  President  Red  Canion  said  that 
money  raised  from  the  sale  would  be  used  pri¬ 
marily  for  expansion  of  Compaq's  manufac¬ 
turing  plant  in  Houston,  Texas. 

In  documents  Bled  with  the  SEC,  the  firm 
reported  a  loss  of  5582,000  on  sales  of  S58.9 
million  in  the  first  nine  months  of  1983,  In  the 
third  quarter  of  this  year,  Compaq  earned  £2.1 
million  on  sales  of  £36  million.  The  initial 
losses  were  largely  attributable  to  startup  man¬ 
ufacturing  costs,  Canion  said.  The  stock  sale  is 
expected  to  bring  in  $90  to  $109  million,  based 
on  a  price  of  Sl5  to  $18  per  share. 

Compaq  has  also  opened  a  European  sub¬ 
sidiary  based  in  Germany  that  will  market  the 
computers  there  Canion  expected  a  strong  de¬ 
mand  in  Europe  as  well  as  a  growing  market 
share  at  home*  Already  the  firm  has  shipped 
twenty-eight  thousand  computers,  including 
sixty-seven  hundred  in  September  a 


for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


BLUE 

COMES  IN  MANY  COLORS 


Tabs 

Ofi-lint  directs: 
ftnrizontal  sm 


ELSE  -  Ife  Herd  Precesser  I 
Tfe  excellent  documentation  includes  a  tutorial, 
extensile  reference  Manual,  and  handy  reference 
card  packaged  in  an  attractive  3  ring  kinder, 
Offer  features  include; 

Oat  t  Paste  , - 

Boebiarte  iBIifE  Herd  Processor  features; 


Table  of  contents 
Footnotes 

Include  other  doeuxents 
Lists 


Unei  4  Mode;  Insert 


ciive  3  ring  kinder,  Sections 
I  Chapters 

- t  Font  control 

Herd  Processor  features;  Spacing  control 

Full  color  Centering 

Multiple  Hindoos  Appendices 

SimtlUneous  editing  of  multiple  files  Date 

User  definaile  colors  Fill 

On-line  felp  I — —  -  —  Justification 

Keystroke  Macros  Price:  i  hacros 

User  definable  vindsus  Indentation 

ftuto  Mord  wap  5158.88  Page  break 

-  _  Title  page 

■  I - -J  Footers 

Conplete  *argin  control 
Automatic  page  numbering 
Headers  f  Left  justified, 

Sight  justified,  or  Centered) 
Customizable  printer  control 
DCS  compatible  files 

Cut  &  Paste;  Line  a: example. M 


BLUE  -  THE  WORD  PROCESSOR 
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TOO’. 


IBM  PERSONAL  COMPUTER  OR  XT. 

SYMMETRIC 

64K  AND  ONE  DISK  DRIVE. 

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DOS  1.1  OR  DOS  2.0 

MONOCHROME  OR  COLOR 

3812  EAST  LA  PALMA  AVENUE 

!  GRAPHICS  ADAPTER 

ANAHEIM,  CALIFORNIA  92807 

(714)  630-8733 

A  In  an  out-of  court  settlement,  Easitech  (At¬ 
lanta,  GA),  formed  by  two  former  Quadram 
employees,  has  agreed  to  cease  distribution  of 
its  IBM  enhancement  board,  which  Quadram 
(Norcross,  GA)  alleged  to  be  a  copy  of  its  own 
popular  Quadboard,  In  the  settlement  of  the 
suit  filed  against  Quadram  by  Easitech  and  the 
resulting  countersuit  by  Quadram,  Easitech 
agreed  to  almost  all  the  actions  Quadram  de¬ 
manded — including  payment  of  a  portion  of 
Quadram's  legal  fees— while  not  admitting 
any  wrongdoing.  Under  the  terms  of  the  settle¬ 
ment,  Easitech  agreed  to  change  the  name  of 
the  company  and  not  to  use  the  name  Easi- 
board  for  any  of  its  products.  The  name  is 
copyrighted  by  Quadram.  The  company's 
"EE/Easitech  Excellence"  logo  also  will  be 
dropped. 

A  Two  subsidiaries  of  Warner  Publishing  (New 
York,  NY)  have  joined  to  publish  and  market 
an  open-ended  series  of  computer  and  soft¬ 
ware  books.  The  joint  imprint  Warner  Soft¬ 
ware/Warner  Books  logo  will  be  integrated 
into  a  monthly  trade-paperback  sales  pro¬ 
gram.  The  first  books  to  bear  the  new  imprint 
will  be  the  7  Simple  Steps  series  on  selecting  a 
computer  system.  A  series  of  books  developed 
in  cooperation  with  the  editors  of  List  maga¬ 
zine  will  also  be  released  under  the  joint  title. 
A  An  established  British  company  in  the  proj¬ 
ect  management  Reid,  Computer-line  Limited 
(Quincy,  MA),  has  announced  the  opening  of 
an  office  in  the  United  States.  Because  of  de¬ 
mands  from  the  American  market  and  existing 
users,  an  administrative  and  technical  staff  has 
been  set  up  in  the  Boston  area. 

A  Peter  J.  Highberg  has  joined  Black  Box  (Pitts¬ 
burgh,  PA)  as  vice  president  of  marketing. 
Highberg  will  be  responsible  for  all  sales  and 
marketing  functions,  reporting  directly  to  the 
president,  E,R,  Yost.  Before  joining  the  com¬ 
pany,  Highberg  was  an  executive  with  Digital 
Equipment,  most  recently  as  corporate  mar¬ 
keting  manager  for  the  computer  special  sys¬ 
tems  group. 

A  A  new  microcomputer  education  company 
called  Know  How  (San  Francisco,  CA)  has 
opened  its  flagship  micro  learning  center  in  San 
Francisco.  The  company,  funded  by  Prentice- 
Hall  and  Pacific  Technology  Venture  Fund, 
specializes  in  meeting  the  microcomputer  edu¬ 
cation  needs  of  business  and  professional 
clients  and  uses  an  integrated  learning 
environment  built  around  the  pc. 


A  Robert  C,  Schneider  has  joined  Sierra  On- 
Line  (Coarsegold,  CA)  as  vice  president  and 
general  consul.  Schneider  was  previously  a 
founding  partner  of  Urland,  Morello  &  Sch¬ 
neider,  attorneys-at-law,  in  Irvine,  CA.  A  Also 
joining  the  company  as  vice  president  of  mar¬ 
keting  is  Bruce  T.  McDonnell.  In  his  new  posi¬ 
tion,  McDonnell  will  be  in  charge  of  all 
marketing  and  sales  activities  for  the  game 
manufacturers.  He  was  previously  with  Heub- 
lein  Wines. 

A  A  private  placement  of  $1.2  million  of  com¬ 
mon  stock  was  completed  by  Byad  (Arlington 
Heights,  ILL  The  lead  investor  was  William 
Blair  Venture  Partners,  with  other  Chicago- 
area  institutional  investors  participating.  The 
company  is  publicly  held,  and  public  trading 
of  its  common  stock  will  begin  in  late  1983  fol¬ 
lowing  appropriate  SEC  filings. 

A  NBI  (Boulder,  CO)  has  announced  the  ap^ 
pointment  of  Leonard  J.  Koch  to  the  new  posi¬ 
tion  of  vice  president  of  major  account 
marketing.  He  will  be  responsible  for  develop¬ 
ing  strategies  and  programs  to  expand  and  en¬ 
hance  the  company's  existing  major  account 
function.  Koch,  40,  comes  to  the  position  from 
a  nineteen-year  career  in  office  automation  and 
data  processing  with  Honeywell. 

A  The  applications  design  package  called  The 
Creator ,  from  Software  Technology  for  Com¬ 
puters  (Newton,  MA),  has  been  chnsen  by 
Softsel  (Inglewood,  CA)  for  marketing 
throughout  Europe. 

A  A  new  national  sales  manager  for  Bristol  In¬ 
formation  Systems  (Fall  River,  MA)  has  been 
named.  Donald  E.  Buhan  will  provide  leader¬ 
ship  in  the  marketing  of  the  company's  new 
business  line  of  accounting  software. 

A  The  formation  of  Ovation  Technologies 
(Boston,  MA)  has  been  announced  by  its 
founders,  former  senior  management  of  The 
Saddlebrook  Corporation.  The  new  company, 
headed  by  Thomas  J.  Gregory,  will  develop 
and  market  business  productivity  software 
and  integrated  hardware  for  the  pc.  Ovation  s 
founders  are  professional  marketers  rather 
than  product  developers.  'We  will  be  the  Krst 
company  to  apply  proven  marketing  back¬ 
grounds  to  a  category  that  has  been  primarily 
product-driven,  '  said  Gregory. 

A  Digital  Engineering  Group  (Houston,  TX),  a 
software  engineering  firm,  has  announced  a 
name  change  to  DEG  Software.  The  new  name 
was  prompted  by  an  expansion  of  the  compa¬ 


ny's  operations  last  year  when  it  began  de¬ 
veloping  software  for  the  microcomputer 
market. 

A  Chuck  Coleman  has  been  selected  by  Fu- 
tureNet  (Canoga  Park,  CA)  as  regional  sales 
manager,  a  new  post.  Prior  to  joining  the  com¬ 
pany,  Coleman  spent  four  years  with  Kontron 
Electronics,  most  recently  as  district  manager. 
A  Steven  Jakowski  has  been  elected  vice  presi¬ 
dent  of  development  at  Systar  (San  lose  CA). 
Prior  to  joining  the  company  Jakowski  held  a 
position  as  a  systems  engineer  for  IBM  and  de¬ 
veloped  a  peer-to-peer  networking  system  for 
the  IBM  Series /I  minicomputer. 

A  Volition  Systems  (Del  Mar,  CA)  has  an¬ 
nounced  that  their  Modula-2  programming 
language  will  be  the  first  software  offering 
from  Springer- Verlag  (New  York,  NY),  the  in¬ 
ternational  publisher  of  scientific,  technical, 
and  medical  books  and  journals.  Until  now  the 
Company  has  concentrated  on  sales  of  the 
package  to  systems  houses  and  software  devel¬ 
opers.  The  move  to  Springer  is  intended  to 
'  spark  additional  interest.  .  Jn  the  academic, 
scientific,  and  technical  fields  where  Springer's 
titles  are  highly  respected,"  according  to  foel  J, 
McCormack  of  Volition  Systems. 

A  The  business  software  distributor,  ITM 
(Walnut  Creek,  CA),  has  moved  to  a  new  four- 
teen-thousand-square-foot  headquarters  in 
Walnut  Creek.  The  new  building  will  allow  the 
company  to  expand  its  inventory  and  shipping 
capabilities  to  service  its  growing  account 
base.  A  software  library  and  training  seminar 
room  are  also  planned  for  the  space. 

A  Prime  Star  Research  (Roselle,  IL)  has  an¬ 
nounced  that  the  computer  article  summaries 
and  new  product  information  contained  in  its 
two  monthly  publications,  Bus  mess  System 
Update  and  Product  Update,  will  be  available 
through  PC  Telemart,  an  on-line  database  that 
provides  information  on  more  than  thirty 
thousand  computer  products.  The  arrange¬ 
ment  allows  PrimeStar  to  maintain  the  "con¬ 
sumer  report  stance  that  our  no-advertising 
policy  allows,"  according  to  Karuna  Murphy 
president  of  the  company. 

A  The  pointing  devices  for  VisiCorp's  VisiOn 
operating  environment  will  be  supplied  by 
Mouse  Systems  (Santa  Clara,  CA),  according 
to  the  company  The  VisiOn  mouse  is  a  two- 
button  version  of  Mouse  Systems's  M  l  optical 
mouse,  which  has  been  in  production  for  the 
past  year. 


SOftOlk  for  the  IBM.  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


23S 


A  A  $25-million  line  of  credit  has  been  ar¬ 
ranged  from  Bank  of  America  by  Businessland 
(San  Jose,  CA).  The  funds  will  be  used  as 
working  capital  and  allow  the  company  to 
pursue  its  expansion  plans  into  major  markets 
throughout  the  country.  A  Businessland  also 
has  announced  the  signing  of  an  agreement 
with  Eagle  Computer  (Los  Gatos,  CA)  to  mar¬ 
ket  the  company's  pc-compatible  product  line, 
which  includes  the  Eagle  computer. 

A  The  former  vice  president  and  treasurer  at 
National  Advanced  Systems  (Palo  Alto,  CA) 
has  been  promoted  to  vice  president  of  finance 
and  administration.  Atam  P.  Lalchandani  will 
be  responsible  for  the  company's  worldwide 
financial  and  administrative  functions.  A  Also 
at  the  company,  Michael  N.  Coulter  has  been 
promoted  to  vice  president  of  business  plan¬ 
ning  from  his  former  position  as  director  of 
sales  support.  He  will  manage  relations  with 
suppliers. 

A  Iomega  (Ogden,  UT)  has  signed  with  Com¬ 
puterLand  (Hayward,  CA)  for  the  distribution 
of  the  company's  cartridge  disk  subsystem 
throughout  the  United  States  through  partici¬ 
pating  dealers.  The  subsystem  is  dubbed  the 
Bernoulli  Box  after  the  seventeenth-century 
Swiss  mathematician  whose  law  of  aerodynam¬ 
ics  is  central  to  the  subsystem's  engineering. 
A  Artist  Ronald  Dale  Resch  has  been  elected  to 
the  board  of  directors  at  The  Redding  Group 
(Stamford,  CT),  graphics  software  developers. 
Resch  is  currently  director  of  Boston  Universi¬ 


ty's  computer  graphics  center.  He  has  attracted 
attention  over  the  past  two  decades  for  his  con¬ 
tributions  to  the  field  of  geometric  and  graphic 
art.  Of  note  are  his  special  effects  for  the  movie 
Star  Trek. 

A  Lifetree  Software  (Monterey,  CA)  has  an¬ 
nounced  the  appointment  of  Ned  Boddie  as  di¬ 
rector  of  research  and  development,  but  the 
president  of  the  company,  Camilo  Wilson, 
who  developed  the  original  Volksioriter,  plans 
to  remain  a  key  R&D  player.  "Lifetree  Soft¬ 
ware  is  creating  a  dedicated  research  and  de¬ 
velopment  department,"  said  Wilson,  "but  I 
will  certainly  remain  active  in  these  areas." 

A  Microrim  (Bellevue,  WA)  has  elected  La¬ 
wrence  Mayhew  to  its  board  of  directors. 
Mayhew  is  currently  president  and  chief  exec¬ 
utive  officer  of  Data  I/O  (Redmond,  WA).  In 
addition  to  his  new  post,  he  is  also  a  senior 
member  of  the  Institute  of  Electrical  and  Elec¬ 
tronic  Engineers. 

A  At  Source  Telecomputing  (McLean,  VA), 
John  J.  Harrington  has  been  appointed  chief 
financial  officer.  He  comes  to  the  post  after  six 
years  with  the  parent  company.  Reader's  Di¬ 
gest  Association.  A  Richard  E.  Huggins  has 
also  joined  the  company  as  director  of  corpo¬ 
rate  development.  He  was  previously  director 
of  marketing  for  CGI  Systems. 

A  Control  Data  (Minneapolis,  MN)  plans  to 
open  nine  software  stores  in  California  by  the 
third  quarter  of  1984.  Called  Software  Only, 
the  stores  will  be  patterned  after  the  company's 


!  TOUR  GOLF 


REALISTIC 

GOLF 

SIMULATION 

•  3  dimentional  display  of 
each  hole 

•  Two  courses:  regular  or 
championship 

•  Two  levels  of  difficulty 

•  Optional  data  diskette  with 
other  courses  available 

•  1  to  4  players 

•  Automatic  scoring 

•  Complete  club  selection:  4 
woods,  9  irons,  putting 

•  Designed  for  IBM  PC  64KB 
color  graphics  board,  160  KB 
diskette.  DOS  1.0  or  1. 1  basic  a 
required. 


SOFTWARE 


POTENTIAL  SOFTWARE 
P.0.  Box  230232 
Portland,  OR  97223 
(503)  650-0671 


first  California  store,  which  opened  in  San 
Diego  last  year  and  carries  a  full  range  of  soft¬ 
ware  for  several  lines  of  micros. 

A  New  digs  for  Alpha  Software  (Burlington, 
MA):  Administrative  offices,  a  warehouse, 
and  production  operations  are  now  located  at 
30  B  Street  in  the  New  England  Executive  Park. 
The  company's  new  corporate  center  is  five 
times  larger  than  its  previous  offices  nearby. 

A  Fox  &  Geller  (Elmwood  Park,  NJ)  has  an¬ 
nounced  the  opening  of  a  new  product  distri¬ 
bution  and  sales  office  in  London,  England, 
bringing  the  number  of  foreign  countries 
served  by  the  company  to  eight.  Anthony  Ri¬ 
ley,  cofounder  of  Orchard  Software  (London, 
U.K.),  will  head  the  London  office. 

A  The  position  of  vice  president  of  finance  has 
been  filled  at  AST  Research  (Irvine,  CA). 
Bruce  Edwards  now  will  be  responsible  for  the 
company's  finance,  accounting  and  control, 
data  processing,  and  budgeting  activities.  The 
position  is  the  result  of  the  company's 
growth — monthly  sales  have  increased  from 
$200,000  to  more  than  $3  million  in  less  than 
eighteen  months. 

A  Eugene  M.  Hayes  has  joined  Sterling  Swift 
Publishing  (Austin,  TX)  as  vice  president, 
marketing.  Hayes  will  be  responsible  for  the 
support  and  expansion  of  the  company's  dealer 
and  distributor  network,  sales  and  advertising 
policies,  and  related  activities,  both  domestic 
and  international.  President  Sterling  Swift 
says  Hayes  "knows  the  education  market  and 
has  been  involved  with  school  data  processing 
for  the  past  twenty  years.  His  experience  as  a 
school  administrator  and  with  Westinghouse 
will  give  us  the  marketing  strength  we  need  to 
continue  our  growth." 

A  Three  new  distributors  have  been  named  by 
interface  manufacturer  CXI  (Cupertino,  CA). 
Personal  Business  Computers  of  Salt  Lake  City 
and  Computer  Plus  of  Denver  were  named 
along  with  Turn  Key  Data  of  Stockholm,  Swe¬ 
den,  the  company's  first  foreign  distributor. 

A  A  national  network  of  sales  representatives 
has  been  named  by  T  &  F  Software  (North 
Hollywood,  CA).  Ten  independent  manufac¬ 
turer's  representative  firms  have  been  assigned 
specific  territories  to  service  retail  accounts  in 
those  areas.  The  reps  named  include  Astocam/ 
Avon  Marketing,  Brooke  Marketing,  Cham¬ 
bers  and  Associates,  Entertainment  Marketing 
Sales,  Micro  Marketing  Canada,  and  Rep 
Sales. 

A  The  corporate  headquarters  of  Lotus  Devel¬ 
opment  (Cambridge,  MA)  has  been  moved  to 
a  forty-six-thousand-square-foot  facility  to  ac¬ 
commodate  the  company's  rapid  growth.  The 
new,  four-story  structure  is  five  times  larger 
than  Lotus's  former  location.  The  new  build¬ 
ing,  at  161  First  Street,  houses  the  executive 
offices  and  research  and  development  facilities. 
Additional  distribution  space  is  planned  to  be 
leased  next  month.  ▲ 


236 


SOftalk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


Why  pay  more  for  a  1200  baud,  auto-dial, 
21 2A  Modem  for  your  IBM 


Flip  the  pages.  You  see  PC  modem  cards  with 
fewer  features  advertised  for  as  much  as  $599. 
Up  until  now  that's  how  much  it  cost  to  make  a 
modem  capable  of  transmitting  at  120  charac¬ 
ters  per  second  (1200  baud).  It  doesn't  take  a 
computer  tofigure  out  the  savings  in  phone  line 
charges  when  you  communicate  four  times 
faster  than  the  30  character  per  second  modems 
(300  baud).  Now  you  can  have  the  solution  to 
your  communication  needs  at  an  unheard  of 
price. 


NOW  COME  THE  SMART  GUYS 

You  can  imagine  how  precise  the  components 
had  to  be  to  convert  tones  over  a  phone  line  into 
characters,  Precision  equates  to  cost.  With  the 
advent  of  the  mass  market  in  personal  computers 
the  economics  of  scale  drove  the  costs  of 
manufacture  down  but  did  not  effect  the  pre¬ 
cision  required.  The  technology  used  is  called 
"analog  filtering".  It  is  the  process  of  sending 
( mod  u  lat  i  ng )  a  nd  rece  i  v  i  ng  (d  e  m  od  u  I  at  i  ng)  to  nes 
with  perfect  pitch  A  lot  of  adjusting,  noise 
suppression,  and  a  little  magic  is  required.  Real 
expensive.  Some  use  lots  of  chips  and  fitters 
(known  as  discrete  components).  The  latest 
rage  is  LSI  (Large  Scale  lntegration)technology. 
Which  is  the  same  old  analog  stuff  condensed 
onto  fewer  chips. 

A  NEW  IDEA 

We  took  a  different  approach.  With  the  Qubie' 
PC  modem  card  you  can  say  goodbye  to  the 
fellow  who  delivers  your  ice  because  refriger¬ 
ation  has  been  invented.  Through  the  use  of 
four  microprocessors  {see  picture)  the  tones  are 
chopped  up  digitally  and  measured  millions  of 
times  per  second,  eliminating  the  need  for 
analog  circuitry,  Two  microprocessors  do  the 
modulating,  two  the  demodulating.  The  chips 
are  programmed  to  emu  la  Lethe  1 03  (30  char  ou¬ 
ters  per  second)  or  212  (210  characters  per 
second)  standards  and  determine  the  correct 
speed  automatically.  It's  a  proven  technology 
that  provides  outstanding  performance.  Best  of 
all,  ft's  inexpensive  and  reliable. 

NO  CORNERS  CUT 

We  included  every  feature  you  would  want  in  a 
modem  card.  It  plugs  into  your  I8M  PC  or  XT  and 
occupies  a  ny  one  slot  si  nee  it  is  j  ust  6/ 1 0  of  a  n 
inch  thick.  This  card  comes  with  its  own  asyn¬ 
chronous  port.  If  you  would  like  to  use  the  async 
port  for  another  peripheral  when  your  modern  is 
not  in  use,  we  will  add  a  connector  for  just  $20, 
It's  FCC  registered  for  direct  connection  to  your 
modular  phone  jack  with  the  cable  which  is 


included  There  is  a  separate  jack  for  your 
telephone  or  you  can  listen  through  the  board's 
speaker.  It  operates  in  full  or  half  duplex  mode 
on  Rotary  dial  lines  (pulse  dialing)  or  on  tone 
lines  (DTMF),  or  a  combination  of  both.  It  will 
work  in  originate  or  auto-answer  modes.  A 
separate  microprocessor,  a  Z8, 
functions. 


LET'S  TALK  SOFTWARE 

Our  modem  is  1 00%  compatible  with  the  Hayes 
software  commands  so  you  can  use  any  of  the 
popular  communications  packages  like  Cross- 
Talk,  Transend,  or  PC  Modem.  We  go  one  better 
than  the  competition.  We  include  one  of  these 
popular  programs  with  your  modem,  PC-TALK 
III.  PC  WORLD  magazine  referred  to  it  as  "the 
benchmark  that  other  PC  communications  pack¬ 
ages  are  measured  against,"  It  stores  phone 
numbers,  log-on  information,  handles  setting 
the  modems  characteristics,  saves  to  disk  files, 
transmits  from  disk  files,  even  binary  files.  And 
to  make  sure  data  is  sent  and  received  accur¬ 
ately,  there  ts  the  XMODEM  protocol  which 
detects  errors  caused  by  poor  line  quality  and 
retransmits  the  data. 


WHY  BUY  FROM  US 

Because  besides  having  the  most  advanced 
product  on  the  market,  we  stand  behind  it  and 
you.  If  at  any  time  during  the  one  year  warranty 
period  your  modem  should  require  service,  we 
will  fix  or  replace  it  within  48  hours.  Notice  also 
there  are  no  hidden  charges  in  our  price. 
Nothing  extra  for  credit  cards  or  COD  charges. 
We  even  pay  UPS  to  deliver  to  you.  If  you  still  are 


not  convinced,  and  are  ready  to  buy  another 
brand  of  modem,  ask  them  if  their  product  can 
take  our  acid  test. 

THE  ACID  TEST 

Qubie'  gives  you  a  30day  satisfaction  guarantee 
on  your  modem.  If  you  are  not  completely 
satisfied  we  will  refund  the  entire  amount  of 
your  purchase  including  the  postage  to  return 
it.  If  you  can,  get  any  of  our  competitors  to  give 
you  the  same  guarantee.  Buy  any  modem  you 
like  and  return  the  one  you  don't  like  We  know 
which  one  you  will  keep. 

WHY  PAY  MORE? 

We  don't  have  a  clue.  It's  all  here  A  high 
quality,  full  featured,  communications  package 
at  a  price  that  used  to  be  reserved  for  300  baud 
modems.  But  if  you  decide  to  spend  an  extra 
$200  or  $300,  we  would  sure  like  to  hear  why 
We  have  spent  lots  of  time  thinking  about  it,  and 
frankly,  we  just  can't  come  up  with  a  reason. 

TO  ORDER  BY  MAIL  SEND 

—Your  name  and  shipping  address 
—  Daytime  phone  number 
—California  residents  add  6%  sales  tax 
—Company  check  or  credit  card  number 
With  expiration  date.  (Personal  checks 
take  1 5  days  to  clear) 

^Specify  single  or  double  sided  disk  drive 

TO  ORDER  BY  PHONE 
Cal!  (805)987-9741 

PRICE: 

$299  includes  300/1200  Baud  Direct- 
Connect  modem  card,  PC-TALK  III  Software, 
cable  to  connect  to  modular  phone  jack, 
installation  instructions  and  manual,  1  year 


limited  warranty. 

External  async  port  connector . $20 

Cable  for  Serial  port  to  printer . $25 

SHIPMENT 


We  pay  UPS  surface  charges.  UPS  2  day  air 
service  add  $5  extra,  Credit  card  or  bank 
check  orders  shipped  next  day. 

QUBIE' 

DISTRIBUTING 

4809  Calle  Alto 
Camarillo,  CA  83010 
(805)  987-9741 


t's  that  time  of  year  again  and  you're  at  the 
office  Christmas  party*  This  one  seems  a  lit¬ 
tle  different.  The  company  has  done  well 
this  year,  so  the  dinner  is  prime  rib  instead 
chicken,  and  everyone  seems  to  be  in  a  holiday 


mood. 


The  Printed  Word 


by  John  Dickinson 


A  Christmas  Graphic 

swer.  Trivia  is  one  of  your  specialties,  so  you  wait  awhile  before  an- 
swering  with,  "His  name  is  Bingo!"  People  look  at  you  with  admiration 
as  your  answer  is  confirmed. 

Now  it's  your  turn.  "Does  anyone  know  how  many  dots  are  on  a 
line?"  you  ask,  smiling  to  y ourself —no  one'll  know  this  one! 

There's  more  murmuring  before  someone  asks,  "What's  a  dot  on  a 


The  boss  pats  you  on  the  shoulder  and,  feeling  unusually  expansive, 
says,  "You  really  helped  us  a  lot  this  year  with  that  little  computer  of 
yours!" 

You're  beaming  with  pride  when  someone  asks,  "Hey,  does  anyone 
know  the  name  of  the  sailor  boy  on  a  Cracker  Jack  box?" 

"Sure,  his  name  is  Jack,"  answers  someone  else.  "But  does  anyone 
know  his  dogs  name?" 

A  murmur  goes  around  the  table  as  everyone  tries  to  guess  the  an- 


Go  for  the 

"MAX™ 


PANAMAX 

Toll  Free  1-600*472-5555 
In  California  call  415-472-5547 
150  Mitchell  Boulevard,  San  Rafael,  CA  94903 


Panamax 
Surge  Suppressors 
provide  the  fastest 
response  time  and 
highest  energy 
dissipation  available 
to  assure  you  the 
maximum  protection 
against  over  voltage 
"Spikes  and  glitches'" 
Priced  from  $59.00 


line?" 

"It's  probably  something  to  do  with  the  computer!"  answers  the 
boss* 

Someone  else  asks,  "Is  it  like  those  'bits'  and  'bytes'  you  always  talk 
about?" 

"Well,  it's  related,”  you  answer. 

We  give  up/  comes  a  plea  from  across  the  table*  "I  mean,  if  it's  the 
computer,  well,  who  else  knows  anything  about  it?" 

Finally,  you  relent  and  answer,  "There  are  960  dots  on  a  line — at 
least  on  my  printer.  Some  have  more,  but  mine  has  9601" 

'What  is  a  'dot  on  a  line,'  anyway?"  someone  asks* 

'It's  what  makes  all  the  characters  on  the  printer— it  makes  graphics 
too,''  you  answer 

"How's  that  work?”  asks  a  secretary. 

"It's  kind  of  hard  to  explain*  You  see,  every  character  is  made  of 
little  dots  that  look  pretty  solid  after  they're  all  printed/' 

"Like  connect-the-dots  puzzles?" 

"Sort  of — well,  not  exactly.  More  like  fill-in  puzzles." 

This  is  a  difficult  subject  to  explain,  and  its  getting  late*  "Look,"  you 
say,  "why  don't  I  just  cook  something  up  in  the  morning  to  show  every¬ 
one  what  I  mean — like,  um,  printing  a  Christmas  card  or  something." 

"Great — we'd  like  to  see  that/'  says  the  boss  as  he  picks  up  the  tab* 
"See  you  in  the  morning*” 

Now  what  are  you  going  to  do?  It  takes  a  lot  of  dots  to  make  some¬ 
thing  like  a  Christmas  card  on  a  printer! 

Lots  of  Dots.  At  least  you're  starting  with  the  right  answer  to  the 
trivia  question.  Many  popular  dot-matrix  printers,  including  Epson, 
IBM,  and  Texas  Instruments,  do  use  a  960-dot  pattern  on  an  eight-inch 
line  to  form  the  printed  words  that  you  read.  Each  printed  character 
takes  up  twelve  of  those  dot  positions,  including  two  for  the  spaces 
between  characters.  Since  most  printers  normally  print  at  ten  charac¬ 
ters  per  inch,  a  quick  calculation  will  tell  you  that 

8  inches  by  10  characters  per  inch  by  12  dots  per  character 
=  960  dots  per  fine 

In  normal  print  mode  most  dot-matrix  printers  actually  use  only 
half  of  those  positions  for  printing*  Every  other  position  is  left  blank. 
One  type  of  enhanced  print  mode  uses  all  the  available  positions*  Ep¬ 
son  and  IBM  call  this  the  emphasized  print  mode.  In  emphasized  mode, 
each  dot  printed  to  form  a  character  is  reprinted  next  to  itself,  doubling 
the  print  density  and  making  the  characters  darker.  The  other  com¬ 
monly  used  enhancement  technique  is  to  reprint  the  line  with  the  paper 
moved  up  a  small  fraction  (about  1  /216th)  of  an  inch.  Epson  and  IBM 


13H 


SOftClIk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


ITS  EASY  TO  LEARN  . .  ,  EASY  TO  USE 
AND  DURING  OUR  SUNDOWN  PROMOTION 
INCREDIBLY  EASY  TO  BUY!! 

And,  now  pre-wrapped  for  you  in  SPECIAL 
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Sundex  may  be  the  only  software  you  can  confi¬ 
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The  Sundex  special  prices  last  until  February  5th. 
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Colorado:  303-440-3800 


call  this  double-strike  mode.  Combining  both  techniques  quadruples 
the  print  density  for  maximum  darkness. 

Printers  that  are  equipped  with  a  graphics  option  allow  you  to  do 
graphics  printing  in  either  480-bit  or  960-bit  mode,  the  graphics  equiva¬ 
lents  of  normal  and  emphasized  printing.  The  use  of  the  word  bit  here 
really  means  bit  image.  Each  of  the  graphics  dot  positions  is  printed  in 
the  image  of  the  bits  that  form  one  byte  of  data.  You  define  the  bit 
image  by  telling  the  printer  what  value  the  byte  has  for  the  position  to 
be  printed. 

Each  horizontal  dot  position  is  defined  by  the  eight  vertically  ar¬ 
ranged  pins  on  the  dot-matrix  printer's  printhead.  These  pins  strike  the 
ribbon  and  cause  the  dot  image  to  appear  on  paper.  You  control  which 
of  the  eight  pins  will  print  by  means  of  a  one-byte  number  between  0 
and  255.  The  one-byte  number  is  stored  internally  as  eight  bits,  each  of 
which  controls  the  action  of  one  of  the  printhead's  pins.  The  printer  will 
print  on  pins  whose  bit  value  is  1  and  won't  print  on  pins  whose  bit 
value  is  0. 

The  number  zero  has  a  bit  pattern  of  00000000,  so  if  the  printer 
receives  a  zero  when  in  graphics  mode,  no  pins  will  print.  The  number 
one  has  a  bit  pattern  of  00000001,  so  the  first  pin  (pin  0,  the  bottom 
one)  will  print.  The  number  128  has  a  bit  pattern  of  10000000,  so  the 
last  pin  (pin  7,  the  top  one)  will  print.  Combinations  of  pins  can  be 
printed  by  using  a  number  whose  bit  pattern  has  the  desired  combina¬ 
tion  of  0  bits  and  1  bits.  For  example,  the  number  165  has  a  bit  pattern 
of  10100101,  so  it  causes  the  first,  third,  sixth,  and  eighth  pins  to  print. 

Defining  all  the  combinations  may  seem  difficult,  but  it  can  be  made 
easier  with  a  little  organization.  It's  best  to  think  of  individual  pins  in 
terms  of  powers  of  two  (that  is,  in  binary),  and  a  small  table  can  be  a 
big  help: 


Pin  Number 

Power  of  2 

Numeric  Value 

Bit  Pattern 

None 

None 

0 

00000000 

0 

0 

1 

00000001 

1 

1 

2 

00000010 

2 

2 

4 

00000100 

3 

3 

8 

00001000 

4 

4 

16 

00010000 

5 

5 

32 

00100000 

6 

6 

64 

01000000 

7 

7 

128 

10000000 

To  define  an  individual  pin  pattern  we  need  only  add  up  the  num¬ 
bers  whose  pin  values  (bit  images)  are  correct  for  our  needs  and  use  the 
result.  The  number  165  is  the  sum  of 

1  (pin  0) 

+  4  (pin  2) 

-I-  32  (pin  5) 

+  128  (pin  7) 

165 

which  gives  us  the  bit-image  pattern  10100101  we  noted  previously. 

Designing  Graphics.  It's  usually  best  to  design  what  we  want  our 
graphic  to  look  like  first  and  then  carefully  plan  how  to  get  it  to  print  by 
determining  the  correct  bit  images.  For  example,  suppose  we  wanted  to 
print  a  square  tablet  eight  dots  high  and  eight  dots  across,  like  this: 

Dot  Position 

12345678 
Pin  7—  ******** 


Pin  6  —  *  * 

Pin  5  —  *  * 

Pin  4  —  *  * 

Pin  3  —  *  * 

Pin  2  —  *  * 

Pin  1  —  *  * 


Pin  0—  ******** 


The  right  and  left  sides  require  all  eight  pins  to  print,  so  we  add  the 
values  for  each  pin  to  get: 

1  +  2  +  4  +  8  +  16  +  32  +  64  +  128  =  255 
For  each  intermediate  dot  position  in  our  square  we  need  to  print 
only  pin  0  (the  bottom  one)  and  pin  7  (the  top  one),  so  we  add  the 
values  for  those  two  pins  to  get  the  correct  bit-image  value: 

1  +  128  =  129 

So  the  number  pattern  that  gives  us  the  correct  bit  images  for  our 
tablet  is 

255  129  129  129  129  129  129  255 

If  we  want  to  get  a  little  fancier,  we  might  put  a  diamond  in  the 
middle  of  the  tablet,  like  this: 

Dot  Position 

12345678 
Pin  7—  ******** 

Pin  6  —  *  *  *  * 

Pin  5  —  *  *  *  * 

Pin  4  —  *  *  *  * 

Pin  3  —  *  *  *  * 

Pin  2  —  *  *  *  * 

Pin  1  —  *  *  *  * 

Pin  0  —  ******** 

This  is  a  little  more  complicated.  The  sides,  top,  and  bottom  are  the 
same  as  before,  but  the  intermediate  positions  are  different.  Once 
again,  a  table  can  help  us: 


Pin# 

Pos  1 

Pos  2 

Pos  3 

Pos  4 

Pos  5 

Pos  6 

Pos  7 

Pos  8 

7 

128 

128 

128 

128 

128 

128 

128 

128 

6 

64 

0 

0 

64 

64 

0 

0 

64 

5 

32 

0 

32 

0 

0 

32 

0 

32 

4 

16 

16 

0 

0 

0 

0 

16 

16 

3 

8 

8 

0 

0 

0 

0 

8 

8 

2 

4 

0 

4 

0 

0 

4 

0 

4 

1 

2 

0 

0 

2 

2 

0 

0 

2 

0 

1 

1 

1 

1 

1 

1 

1 

1 

Total 

255 

153 

165 

195 

195 

165 

153 

255 

The  numeric  pattern  with  the  bit  images  required  to  make  the  tablet 
with  the  diamond  in  it  is  found  in  the  totals  line  at  the  bottom  of  the 
table.  If  we  tell  the  printer  to  print  the  bit  pattern  defined  by 
255  153  165  195  195  165  153  255 

the  graphic  tablet  with  the  diamond  in  it  will  be  printed.  We  could  have 
saved  a  little  time  by  noticing  that  the  pattern  is  symmetrical  (the  left 
and  right  sides  are  mirror  images  of  each  other),  but  it  can  be  useful  at 
first  to  write  everything  out. 

The  next  thing  we  have  to  do  is  tell  the  printer  to  print  the  graphics. 
If  we  just  instructed  the  printer  to  print  the  numbers  required  for  our 
bit-image  patterns,  we'd  just  get  the  ASCII  characters  defined  by  those 
numbers.  For  characters  in  the  normal  printable  ASCII  range  of  32 
through  127,  we  would  get  the  usual  characters.  Which  characters  we 
would  get  beyond  this  range  would  depend  on  the  printer  make  and 
model  used  (see  previous  columns  for  further  discussions  of  this  topic). 

Talking  to  the  Printer.  Somehow  you  have  to  tell  the  printer  to  use 
the  values  you  supply  as  graphics  bit  patterns  and  not  for  characters. 
Printers  with  graphics  options  usually  use  an  escape  sequence  for  this 
purpose.  The  Epson,  IBM,  and  Texas  Instruments  printers  provide  an 
easy  model  to  use.  Others  are  similar;  they  usually  differ  only  in  the 
first  part  of  the  escape  sequence. 

The  escape  sequence  comes  in  two  parts.  First,  there  is  a  command 
to  tell  the  printer  to  enter  graphics  mode.  For  the  Epson/IBM  printers 
the  sequence  to  enter  480-bit  graphics  is  027  076.  To  enter  the  960-bit 
graphics  mode,  you  enter  the  escape  sequence  027  077. 

We  also  have  to  tell  the  printer  how  many  bit  images  to  expect.  This 
presents  something  of  a  problem,  since  a  one-byte  number  can  be  no 
bigger  than  255  and  we  are  able  to  print  as  many  as  960  one-byte  bit 


240 


SOftalk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


T9&3  FEDERAL  FORMS  AND  SCHEDULES  INCLUDED 


PRINTS 


Compute  and  print 
client  tax  returns 
in  minutes 


on  your  microcomputer  with 

MICRO'TAX 


m* 


\ 


/ 


have 


TtiaVs  right,  in  just  minutes  you  can  have  a 
client’s  completed  tax  return  In  your  hand. 

Think  about  it  you  increase  client  volume,  you  increase  your  p 
Plus,  you  save  the  cost  of  your  computer  service  bureau— and  you 
complete  client  security, 

FEDERAL  AND  STATE 


3ERAI  AND  STATE  PACKAGES  TO  MEET  EVERY  NEED,  MICRO-TAX 
offers  four  Federal  tax  packages  and  25  state  packages  {fully  integrated 
with  the  Level  M  Program),  so  you  can  select  the  programs  that  best  meet 
your  needs: 

Level  I— Federal  Individual  Package:  for  individuals  preparing  their  own  taxes. 
Level  II — Federal  Professional  Individual  Package:  for  accountants, 
registered  agents,  tax  attorneys,  and  other  tax  professionals. 

Level  III— Federal  Partnership/ Corporate  Package:  for  those  who  pre¬ 
pare  Federal  Partnership,  Corporate,  and  Subchapter  S  returns. 

Level  IV— Overseas  Tax  Package:  addresses  the  unique  tax  situations 
of  United  States  Expatriates, 

Levels  11,111,  and  IV  have  a  depreciation  module  and  automatically  com¬ 
pute  underpayment  penalties  and  minimum  tax.  In  addition.  Levels  ii  and 
III  automatically  compute  self-employment  taxes,  and  Level  II  computes 
Income  averaging, 

FLEXIBLE  DATA  ENTRY,  With  MICRO-TAX*  you  can  organize  data  entry 
in  a  sequence  similar  to  that  of  manual  tax  preparation,  or  you  can 
choose  another  sequence.  The 
menu  driven  system  makes  data 
entry  simple, 

MULTIPLE  PRINTING  OP¬ 
TIONS  You  can  input  client  tax 
information  at  the  time  of  inter¬ 
view  and  produce  forms  imme¬ 
diately,  or  enter  data  during  the 
day  and  batch  print  returns  at 
night.  MICRO-TAX"  prints  your 
returns  on  IRS  forms,  IRS  ap¬ 
proved  substitute  forms,  or 
with  transparent  overlays, 

TAXNET*— TELETEXT  SUP¬ 
PORT  NETWORK.  MICRO-TAX* 
customers  can  now  have  access 
to  an  electronic  mailbox  and 
instantaneous  memoboard 
through  the  TAXNET* 


teletext  support  network.  With  TAX  NET,  *  you  can  send  information,  ask 
questions,  get  answers  and  updates — directly  through  your  computer 
and  a  modem, 

TAX  ORGANIZER  .  Now  MICRO-TAX*  offers  a  Tax  Organizer,  You  get  both 
the  software  and  the  forms,  so  each  year,  you  can  send  your  clients  an 
organizer  with  the  prior  year’s  client  data  printed  on  it. 

HARDWARE  COMPATIBILITY.  MICRO-TAX*  is  compatible  with  your  IBM 
PC/XT,"  DEC  Rainbow,"  Radio  Shack,*  or  any  other  personal  computer 
with  CP/M-80,*  PC  DOS,*  or  MS  DOS* —from 
Apple*  to  Zenith  * 

So,  take  the  tedium  out  of  tax  preparation¬ 
's//  Micro-Tax*  for  complete  details, 
or  cad  your  local  dealer. 


FULL  FEDERAL 
MICRO -TAX’ 
PERSONAL 
COMPUTER 
SYSTEMS 


Level  I*  Individual 

sits 


Level  II,  Professional 
individual  S10DQ. 


Level  III,  PsMnership/ 
Corporate  $1000, 


Level  IV,  Overseas 

$2000. 


-All  forms  and  schedules  subjecl  Id  final  IRS  changes  for  1933  lax  year, 

*25  Integrated  slate  returns  available  *  Orders  laken  for  yearly  update  packages 
*  Transparencies;  Level  L  5150:  Levels  II,  III,  IV,  $25(1  each. 


'C/PM — trademark  ol  digital  Research. 
Inc.,  OEC  Rainbow— trademark  of  DigitaJ 
Equipment  Corp ;  MICRO-TAX  and  TAXNIET 
— Irademarks  of  MicrocpinpuJer  Taxsystems. 
Inc..  MS  DOS — trademark  oE  Microsoft 
Corp  :  PC  DOS.  IBM  PC,  and  IBM  XT— 
irademarks  Ql  fBM:  Apple— trademark  of 
Apple  Computers,  Zenilh — trademark  q! 
Heath  Company  and  Zemih  Radio  Corp . 
Radio  Shack— trademark  ol  Tandy  Corp 


MICRO-TAX*  MICROCOMPUTER  TAXSYSTEMS,  INC. 

6203  Variel  Avenue,  Suite  A  Woodland  Hills,  CA  91367i  Dept,  11  Phone  (213)  704-7800 
(Area  code  changes  to  (818),  effective  January  1984) 


images  per  eight-inch  Une,  We  solve  the  problem  neatly  by  dividing  the 
number  into  two  pieces,  called  the  low-order  byte  and  the  high-order 
byte.  To  get  these  two  pieces  we  divide  the  number  of  bit  images  desired 
by  256;  the  whole-number  part  of  the  quotient  is  then  used  as  the  high- 
order  byte,  and  the  remainder  becomes  the  low-order  byte. 

An  example  may  help.  If  we  want  to  print  480-bit  images,  the  fol¬ 
lowing  arithmetic  will  get  us  the  correct  results: 

480  /  256  —  1;  remainder  =  224 

In  this  case,  the  low-order  byte  has  a  value  of  224  and  the  high-order 
byte  has  a  value  of  1.  The  escape  sequence  for  printing  480-bit  images 
tn  480-bit  graphics  mode,  then,  is 
027  076  224  001 

To  complete  the  entire  graphics  sequence  we  have  to  include  the 
pattern  we  want  to  print.  So  if  we  want  to  print  our  simple  eight-posi¬ 
tion  square  in  480-bit  mode,  we  need  only  print  eight  bit  images.  The 
arithmetic  needed  to  compute  the  low-order  and  high-order  bytes  is: 

8  /  256  =  0;  remainder  =  8 

The  low-order  byte  therefore  is  008,  and  the  high-order  byte  is  000,  The 
entire  graphic  sequence  for  the  square  is: 

027  076  008  000  255  129  129  129  129  129  129  255 

In  practice  it  is  difficult  to  transmit  this  much  data  to  the  printer 
without  using  a  programming  language.  On  the  pc,  Basic  is  the  easiest 
and  most  accessible  language.  Last  month  we  used  Basic  to  generate  a 
file  containing  one  escape  character.  This  month  we'll  use  Basic  to  gen¬ 
erate  our  graphics  sequences. 

Using  Basic,  All  character  sequences  can  be  defined  by  means  of 
Basic's  ckr$  function.  All  you  have  to  do  is  provide  chr$  with  the  one- 
byte  number  and  tell  Basic  what  to  do  with  it.  For  example,  the  charac¬ 
ter  A  is  ASCII  number  65,  so  it  can  be  defined  in  Basic  as  cIiy$(65}>  Tn 


tel)  Basic  to  have  the  printer  print  an  A  on  our  printer,  we  would  say: 
IPRINT  CHR£(65) 

To  concatenate  characters  in  Basic,  we  use  a  plus  sign.  To  print  the 
sequence  ABC .  therefore,  we  would  say: 

LPRINT  CHR$(65)  +  CHRS(66)  +  CHRS(67) 

Printing  a  graphic  sequence  is  no  different.  The  Basic  statement 
needed  to  print  our  simple  square  is 

10  LPRINT  CHR${27)  +  CHRS(76)  -b  CHRS(6)  +  CHRS{0)  + 

C HRS (255)  -h  CHR$(129)  +  CHRSU29)  +  CHRS(129)  + 
CHR$(129)  -h  CHR$(129)  +  CHR$(129)  +  CHRS(255) 

The  line  number  allows  us  to  save  this  program  before  running  it.  After 
you  type  this  one-line  program,  use  the  run  command,  and  the  square 
will  print  on  your  printer,  A  good  exercise  for  you  would  be  to  substi¬ 
tute  the  values  of  the  square  with  the  diamond  in  it  for  the  simple 
square  and  run  the  program  again. 

You  will  notice  that  your  printed  square  is  very  tiny.  After  all  this 
work,  we  have  defined  only  eight  out  of  the  960  positions  that  can  be 
used  for  one  line  of  graphics  printing!  Even  if  we  use  only  480  positions, 
this  can  be  a  lot  of  work.  To  print  any  kind  of  meaningful  computer 
graphics  requires  an  immense  amount  of  data  and  a  lot  of  planning. 
Software  packages  are  available  that  do  the  planning  and  require 
little  or  no  effort  on  your  part.  If  you're  using  DOS  2.0  and  have  a 
graphics  card  and  monitor,  you  can  use  the  graphics  command  and  the 
pcs  printscreen  facility  to  produce  spectacular  screen  dump  graphics. 
But  this  capability  is  limited  to  the  IBM  Graphics  printer  and  compati¬ 
bles:  the  TI  850  and  Epsons  equipped  with  Graftrax-Plus. 

Even  if  you  have  none  of  the  above,  stay  tuned  and  you'll  get  the 
Christmas  card  you  promised  your  friends  at  the  party.  The  rest  of  this 
month's  column  will  present  a  Basic  program  that  makes  a  greeting 


USUAL  HOLHW  DRIVEL 
IN  THE  GUISE  OF  A  HOUSE  AD 


Make  no  mistake  about  it: 
The  inexorable  sands  of  time 
have  crept  around  again  to  that 
spot  on  the  calendar  we  so  eu¬ 
phemistically  call  the  “Holiday 
Season."  We've  celebrated 
Thanksgiving,  Christmas  is  this 
month,  followed  by  New  Year's, 
and  then  a  chance  to  catch  our 
breath. 

So  what  are  we  thankful  for? 
Well,  we're  thankful  PC  and 
PC  World  haven't  put  us  out  of 
business  yet.  And  we're  thank¬ 
ful  that  our  book  division  has 
almost  earned  its  name  by  get¬ 
ting  at  least  one  manuscript  al¬ 
most  ready  for  printing.  We're 


also  grateful  that  one  or  two  of 
our  columnists  are  actually 
sending  in  their  copy  on  time. 

Of  course  we're  grateful  that 
so  many  of  you  readers  are  de¬ 
ciding  to  continue  with  us  after 
your  free  trial  subscription  has 
expired.  But  we'd  be  even  more 
grateful  if  you'd  all  stop  taking 
so  much  pride  in  being  the  only 
ones  on  your  block  with  a  sub¬ 
scription  to  Softalk. 

GIVE! 

Give  Softalk  to  Aunt  Millie, 
the  postman,  the  crotchety 
neighbor  next  door,  cousin 
Arnold,  and  the  cute  kid  who 


can't  stay  out  of  your  crab-apple 
tree.  Give  Softalk  to  your  school 
library,  your  public  library,  and 
your  company  library.  Give  lots 
of  Softalks.  Then  you'll  be  in¬ 
fused  with  the  Christmas  spirit 
and  we'll  be  thankful  for  your 
generosity.  That  way,  we  can 
both  enter  the  new  year  with 
smiles  on  our  faces. 

There,  we've  done  it!  We've 
paid  our  homage  to  three  holi¬ 
days  in  one  appeal.  How  can 
you  resist? 

P.S.:  We'll  even  save  you 
money.  Through  December  31, 
we'll  take  $18  instead  of  $24  for 
a  one-year  subscription. 


J 


242 


softalk 


card  and  uses  some  helpful  data-compression  techniques.  Some  tips  are 
included  on  how  to  run  the  program  on  almost  any  printer  equipped 
with  a  graphics  option. 

The  Christmas  Card  Program.  The  program  is  as  simple  as  it  can  be 
while  still  producing  meaningful  graphics.  As  noted,  graphics  require  a 
lot  of  data,  and  the  picture  we  want  to  draw  has  10,560  separate  data 
elements.  (And  it  produces  only  eleven  lines  of  graphics  output!)  To 
make  things  a  bit  easier,  the  program  uses  two  data-compression  tech¬ 
niques  that  you  may  want  to  note  for  future  reference. 

The  first  technique  is  to  design  the  original  graphic  for  480-bit  print¬ 
ing  rather  than  960-bit  printing.  (The  actual  work  for  the  graphic  de¬ 
sign  in  the  program  was  done  by  Barry  Gordon  of  IBM's  Customer 
Service  group  in  midtown  Manhattan.)  This  saves  you  half  the  work  of 
developing  numbers — in  our  case  only  5,280  numbers  had  to  be  devel¬ 
oped.  To  achieve  960-bit  graphics  printing,  the  printing  of  each  dot 
position  is  repeated,  just  as  in  the  emphasized  printing  technique 
described  earlier. 

The  second  data-compression  technique  is  an  algorithm  allowing 
bit-image  values  that  are  repeated  to  be  entered  only  once.  Repeated 
values  are  very  common  in  graphics,  and  this  Christmas  card  is  no 
exception.  Each  value  to  be  repeated  is  entered  with  a  companion  num¬ 
ber  indicating  how  many  times  it's  to  be  repeated.  We  achieve  this  by 
preceding  the  bit-image  value  that  is  to  be  repeated  by  a  negative  num¬ 
ber  indicating  the  number  of  repetitions. 

For  a  simple  example,  look  back  at  our  original  square.  Using  this 
"repeater"  technique,  the  values  are  entered  as: 

255  -  6  129  255 

This  may  not  sound  like  much,  but  to  draw  a  straight  bar  across  a 
graphics  print  using  all  the  pins  would  require  printing  the  value  255 
either  480  or  960  times.  You  will  notice  that 
-480  255 

is  much  easier  to  enter  (and  think  about)  than 

255  255  255  255  255  255  255  255  255  255  255.  .  .255 

One  other  compression  technique  used  in  the  Christmas  card  pro¬ 
grams  is  to  start  off  with  one  completely  blank  line  (the  first  480-bit 
images  are  initialized  at  zero).  This  line  and  other  open  areas  are  later 
filled  with  randomly  generated  snowflakes.  This  approach  is  similar  to 
techniques  that  use  mathematical  functions  (for  example,  a  sine  func¬ 
tion)  to  generate  graphic  patterns. 

The  program  as  printed  runs  correctly  on  the  IBM  Graphics  printer, 
the  Epson  models  MX-80  (with  Graftrax-Plus),  FX-80,  and  RX-80,  and 
on  the  TI  850.  Tips  for  other  printers  follow. 

Wide  Carriage  Printers.  If  your  printer  has  a  wide  carriage,  you 
may  need  to  add  a  carriage  return  /line  feed  at  the  end  of  each  graphic 
line.  To  do  this,  change  line  1700  to  read: 

1700  IF  NEW. LINE.  %  THEN  LPRINT:  LPRINT  GRPH.960.BIT.S;  : 

NEW.LINE.  %  =  0 

Low-Density  Graphics.  If  your  printer  can  print  only  480-bit  images 
per  line  (or  you  wish  to  print  the  program  in  single  density),  eliminate 
lines  1710  and  1840  and  use  the  following  modification  of  line  1770: 
1770  IF  X.%  =  0  AND  Z.%  <  >  OLD.Z.%  AND  Z.%  MOD  2 
THEN  X.%  =  2  AZ.% 

Inverted  Bit  Images.  Some  printers  (for  example,  Okidata,  NEC, 
and  C.  Itoh)  use  bit  images  that  are  inverted  relative  to  the  ones  used  by 
IBM  and  Epson  (pin  0,  as  described  earlier,  is  pin  7,  and  vice  versa). 
We've  included  a  subroutine  that  inverts  the  graphic  bit-image  values 
defined  for  our  graphics  program.  To  invert  the  bit  images  for  your 
printer,  use  the  following  modified  lines  to  invoke  the  subroutine: 
1200  IF  ITEM.%  >  =  0  THEN  GOSUB  3100  : 

GRAPHIC.  %  (ELEMENT.  % )  =  ITEM.%  : 

ELEMENT.  %  =  ELEMENT.  %  +  1 
1270  READ  ITEM.%  :  GOSUB  3100 

Seven-Bit  Graphics.  Some  printers  (Okidata,  for  example)  allow 
seven  instead  of  eight  pins  to  be  used  for  graphics  printing.  A  few  small 


modifications  should  resolve  this  problem: 

1720  X.%  =  GRAPHIC.  %  (ELEMENT.  %)  \  2 

1760  Z.%  =  INT(RND  *  (1+6)) 

If  your  printer  has  seven-bit  graphics  and  uses  inverted  bit  images, 
add  the  following  modifications  to  the  inversion  subroutine. 

3150  POWER.OF.2.%  =  6 

3190  IF  WORK. Y.%  >=  0  THEN  GRAPHIC. FLIP.  %  = 
GRAPHIC. FLIP. %  +  2A(6  -  POWER.OF.2.%) : 
GRAPHIC.  BYTE.  %  =  WORK.  Y.% 

Escape  Sequences.  Escape  (control)  sequences  vary  among  printers, 
and  it  would  be  impossible  to  tell  you  exactly  what  the  correct  ones  for 
your  printer  are.  A  list  of  the  sequences  used  by  the  program  (and  their 
line  numbers)  should  help  you  in  a  search  through  your  printer 
manual: 

Printer  Control  Sequences  Used  by  Graphics  Program 
Line  Number  Desired  Printer  Output 


1490  Line  spacing  at  one-ninth  inch  (some 

graphics  options  include  this) 

1520  Normal  (one-sixth  inch)  line  spacing 

1540  Double- width  (five  CPI)  characters 

1550  Emphasized  and  double-strike  printing 

(some  printers  have  one  or  none  of 
these) 

1590  960-bit  graphics.  If  your  printer  has 

two  graphics  densities,  use  the  higher 
one.  Be  careful  to  follow  the 
instructions  for  counting  bit  images 
exactly.  There  are  several  different 
methods,  and  an  incorrect  calculation 
will  cause  havoc  on  your  printer. 


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243 


Next  month  well  show  you  what  the  output  of  the  Christmas  card 
program  looks  like  and  return  to  the  intelligent  printer  series.  If  you 
don't  feel  like  typing  the  whole  program  in,  seud  eight  dollars  to  Sof- 
talk  /Xmas  and  well  send  you  a  disk  with  the  Christmas  card  program 
on  it. 


CORRECTION 

The  following  three  paragraphs  from  page  126  of  the  September 
issue  were  in  error.  The  statements  regarding  use  of  escape-A  and  es- 
cape-2  for  both  printers  were  reversed.  The  tables  printed  with  the  arti¬ 
cle  are  correct. 

Variable  line  spacing  (escape-2,  escape- At  escape-3,  escape-))— B oth 
printers  have  the  ability  to  vary  the  space  between  lines.  Spacing  is 
specified  in  72nds  or  216ths  of  an  inch.  Setting  variable  line  sparing  in 
216 ths  of  an  inch  (escape-3  and  escape-J)  work  the  same  on  the  IBM  and 
the  Epson.  However,  there  is  a  subtle  difference  between  the  printers  in 
how  the  72nds  of  an  inch  options  operate. 

When  the  user  specifies  72nds  of  an  inch  (using  escape-A)  on  the 
MX-80  it  takes  effect  immediately.  The  escape-2  code  also  specifies 
72nds  of  an  inch  on  the  IBM,  but  the  spacing  does  not  take  effect  until  it 
is  enabled  with  the  escape-2  code. 

The  Epson  uses  escape-2  to  set  vertical  line  spacing  to  l/6th  of  an 
inch.  You  can  set  spacing  to  l/6th  of  an  inch  on  the  IBM  by  specifying 
12/72nds  of  an  inch  with  escape-A,  and  then  using  escape-2, 


A  Christinas  Graphic 
from  Softalk  for  the  IBM  PC 


1000  REM  A  Christmas  Graphic  from  Softalk  lor  the  IBM  PC 
1010  REM 

1020  DIM  GRAPHIC,  %  (5200! 

1030  REM 

1040  REM  -  Make  Open  Sky 
1050  REM 

1060  FOR  ELEMENT,  %  =  1  TO  480 
1070  GRAPHIC.  %  (ELEMENT,  %)  =  0 
1060  NEXT 
109O  REM 

1100  REM  -  Read  the  Graphic  Data  Below  the  Sky 
1110  REM 

1120  ELEMENT.TOTAL.%  =  O 
1130  ELEMENT.  %  =  481 
1140  FOR  COUNT.  %  =  1  TO  611 
1150  READ  ITEM.  % 

1160  ELEMENT.TOTAL.%  =  ELEMENT.TOTAL.%  +  ITEM.% 

1170  REM 

1100  REM  -  Single  Item 
1190  REM 

1200  IF  rTEM.%  >  =  0  THEN  GRAPH  1C.%( ELEMENT.  %)  =  1TEM,%  : 

ELEMENT.  %  -  ELEMENT  %  +  1 

1210  REM 

1220  REM  -  Multiple  Item 

1230  REM 

1240  WHILE  rTEM.%  <  0 
1250  MUM,  %  =  ABS(ITEM.%} 

1260  READ  ITEM.  % 

1270  ELEMENT.TOTAL.%  =  ELEMENT.  T  OTA  L*  %  +  ITEM.% 

1260  COUNT.  %  =  COUNT,  %  +  1 
1290  FOR  L  %  =  1  TO  NUM,  % 

1300  GRAPHIC ,  % { ELEMENT  % )  =  ITEM*% 

1310  ELEMENT.  %  =  ELEMENT  %  +  1 

1320  NEXT 

1330  WEND 

1340  NEXT  COUNT,  % 

1350  REM 

1360  REM  -  Check  the  Element  Counter  -  Stop  il  Incorrect 
1370  REM 

1360  PRINT  'ELEMENT, TOTAL. %  =  *;  ELEMENT.TOTAL.% 

1390  IF  ELEMENT.TOTAL.%  <  >  25155  THEN 


PRINT  ““ERROR  IN  DATA  STATEMENT11** ' :  END 
1400  REM 

1410  REM  -  Data  is  Loaded  -  Now  Draw  the  Picture 
1420  REM 

1430  REM  -  Prevent  BASIC  From  Sending  Line  Feeds 
1440  WIDTH  *LFT1:',255 
1450  REM 

1460  REM  -  Epson/IBM  Codes  Follow 
1470  REM 

1460  REM  -  l/9th  of  an  Inch  Spacing  for  IBM /Epson  Graphics 
1490  SPC, NARROW.®  =  CHRS(27)  +  CHRS(51)  +  CHRS(24) 

1500  REM 

1510  REM  -  l/6th  of  an  Inch  Spacing  (Normal) 

152®  SPC.NORMAL.S  =  CHRS(27)  +  CHRS(50) 

1530  PAGE,FEED,S  -  CHR$(12) 

1540  WIDE.®  =  CHRS(14) 

1550  EMPH.DOUB*®  -  CHR5(27)  +  CHR$(69)  T  CHRS(27)  +  CHRS(7U 

1560  REM 

1570  REM  -  960-Bit  Image  Per  Line  Graphics 
1560  REM 

1590  GRPH. 960. BITS  -  CHRS(27)  +  CHRS(76)  +  CHItS(192)  +  CHRS(3) 

1600  REM 

1610  REM  -  Set  Up  Printer 
1620  REM 

1630  LPRINT  PAGE. FEED.® 

1640  LPRINT  SPC.  NARROW.® 

1650  REM 

1660  REM  -  Start  Graphics  Printing 
1670  REM 

1680  NEW.  LINE.  %  =  -3 

1690  FOR  ELEMENT,  %  =  1  TO  5280 

1700  IF  NEW, LINE* %  THEN  LPRINT  CRPH. 960. BITS;  :  NEW.LINE.%  =  O 

1710  PRINT.T  WO,  %  =  -1 

1720  X,%  =  GRAPHIC.  % (ELEMENT,  %) 

1730  REM 

1740  REM  -  Make  Snow  Randomly  -  Remove  Next  3  Lines  if  No  Snow  Wanted 
1750  REM 

1760  Z,%  =  INTfRND  *  (1  +  7)! 

1770  1FX.%  =  0  AND  Z,%  (>  OLD.2.%  ANDZ,%  MOD  2 

THEN  X*%  =  2  A  Z.%:  PRINT  TWO,  %  =  0 
1780  OLD.2.%  =Z,% 

1790  LPRINT  CHR5(X.%); 

1600  REM 

1610  REM  -  Print  Double  Density  if  Not  Making  Snow 
1620  REM  -  Remove  if  Using  480-Bit  Image 
1630  REM 

1640  IF  PRINT  TWO*  %  THEN  LPRINT  CHRS(X.%);  ELSE  LPRINT  CHRS(0), 

1650  REM 

i860  REM  -  Check  for  New  Line 
1870  REM 

1880  IF  ELEMENT. %  MOD  480  =  0  THEN  NEW.LINE.%  =  -1 
1890  NEXT  ELEMENT.  % 

1900  REM 

1910  REM  ~  Finish  Up  With  Text  Greeting 
1920  REM 

1930  LPRINT  SPC.NORMAL.S  +  EMFH.DOURS 
1940  LPRINT 

1950  LPRINT  WIDE,®  +  '=====-==  Stitvlk  Greetings  1963  * =  =  =  =  = 

1960  LPRINT  PAGE.FEED.S 

1970  REM  -  That's  A1U 

1980  END 

1990  REM 

2000  REM  Data  Statements  Follow  *  .  .  Enough  for  400  Bit  Images/ Line 
2010  REM 


2020  DATA 

-6, 

0, 

—  14, 

63, 

—3, 

0 

2030  DATA 

-14, 

63, 

-44+ 

0, 

“14, 

255 

204O  DATA 

-3, 

0, 

"14, 

255, 

-267, 

0 

2050  DATA 

3, 

127, 

3, 

-179, 

0, 

-14 

2060  DATA 

255, 

-3, 

0, 

-14, 

255* 

-266 

2070  DATA 

0, 

3, 

"3, 

255, 

3, 

-24 

2060  DATA 

o. 

1, 

127, 

1, 

-151, 

0 

2090  DATA 

-H 

255, 

“3, 

0, 

-14, 

255 

2100  DATA 

“24, 

0, 

-s. 

256, 

-234, 

0 

2110  DATA 

“2, 

3, 

127, 

“5, 

255,. 

127 

2120  DATA 

—  2, 

3, 

“19, 

0, 

1, 

31 

2130  DATA 

-3, 

255, 

31, 

1, 

-52, 

0 

2140  DATA 

1, 

3. 

7, 

15, 

31, 

63 

2150  DATA 

127, 

— 

255, 

—  87, 

0, 

-14 

2160  DATA 

255, 

-3. 

0, 

“14, 

255. 

-3 

2170  DATA 

0, 

-3, 

3, 

—3, 

31, 

-3 

2180  DATA 

15, 

-7, 

0, 

"2, 

3, 

"2 

244 


soltolk 


2190  DATA 

31  r 

-7, 

255, 

—42, 

0, 

-2 

2710  DATA 

0, 

-3, 

7, 

-15, 

0, 

—5 

22W  DATA 

3, 

—  29,' 

0, 

-2, 

7, 

-137 

2720  DATA 

15, 

-4, 

7, 

—  2, 

0, 

-10 

2210  DATA 

0, 

-4, 

7, 

-17, 

-11 

2730  DATA 

255, 

-2, 

0. 

-5, 

2S5, 

-2 

2220  DATA 

255, 

—  18, 

0, 

63, 

—  7, 

255 

2740  DATA 

0, 

-16, 

255, 

-3, 

63, 

-24 

2230  DATA 

63 , 

-51, 

0, 

-10, 

255, 

-83 

2750  DATA 

255, 

—5, 

0, 

“9, 

255, 

0 

2240  DATA 

0, 

-4, 

63, 

-14, 

255, 

-3 

2760  DATA 

—7, 

127, 

0, 

”10, 

255, 

- 2 

2250  DATA 

0, 

-14, 

255, 

-3, 

0, 

“9 

2770  DATA 

0, 

—6, 

127, 

7, 

—2, 

127 

2260  DATA 

255, 

-2, 

0, 

-2, 

15, 

-14 

2780  DATA 

—  10H 

255, 

-3, 

0, 

-3, 

127 

2270  DATA 

255, 

-6, 

63, 

—3, 

127, 

-3 

2790  DATA 

-2, 

3, 

-3, 

63, 

-10, 

2 55 

2280  DATA 

63, 

—  25, 

0, 

15, 

-6, 

255 

2800  DATA 

-3, 

0, 

-30, 

255, 

3, 

-2 

2290  DATA 

-2, 

63, 

-2, 

255, 

—7, 

0 

281G  DATA 

31, 

-2, 

3, 

—3, 

127, 

-4 

2300  DATA 

-3r 

15, 

63, 

-3, 

127, 

-4 

2820  DATA 

31, 

-2, 

0, 

—  7, 

255. 

-4 

2310  DATA 

0, 

“2, 

63, 

-6, 

255, 

-74 

2830  DATA 

127, 

-11, 

0, 

-3, 

31, 

-2 

2320  DATA 

0, 

-3, 

31, 

-3, 

127, 

-3 

2840  DATA 

7, 

“7, 

1, 

-2, 

63. 

-89 

2330  DATA 

31, 

—46, 

0, 

—  5, 

7, 

—  2 

2850  DATA 

255, 

-3, 

0, 

3, 

-2, 

7 

2340  DATA 

0, 

-4, 

255, 

-17, 

0, 

-11 

2860  DATA 

3, 

0, 

-44, 

255, 

—  3h 

15 

2350  DATA 

255, 

-18, 

0, 

-9, 

255, 

-9 

2870  DATA 

-8, 

255, 

0, 

-60, 

255, 

-2 

2360  DATA 

0, 

”2r 

1, 

“4, 

127, 

-4 

2880  DATA 

0, 

-9, 

255, 

-2, 

0, 

”9 

2370  DATA 

15, 

-15, 

0, 

-2, 

3, 

-4 

2890  DATA 

255, 

“3, 

15, 

—  5, 

127, 

-4 

2380  DATA 

15, 

-11, 

0, 

”10, 

255, 

-3 

2900  DATA 

0, 

—9, 

255, 

-2, 

3, 

-10 

2390  DATA 

0, 

-9, 

31, 

-2, 

1, 

0 

2910  DATA 

255, 

-2, 

0. 

-5, 

255, 

-2 

2400  DATA 

”3, 

1, 

“2, 

0, 

—  3, 

127 

2920  DATA 

127, 

-45, 

255. 

-2, 

0, 

-3 

2410  DATA 

-3, 

31, 

-3, 

127, 

—  4, 

31 

2930  DATA 

15, 

-9, 

255, 

-7, 

255 

2420  DATA 

-50, 

0, 

-18, 

255, 

—3, 

0 

2940  DATA 

0, 

”10, 

255, 

-2, 

0, 

-19 

2430  DATA 

-14, 

255, 

“3, 

0, 

”9, 

255 

2950  DATA 

255, 

—  3, 

127, 

-18, 

255, 

-3 

2440  DATA 

—2, 

3, 

-30, 

255, 

—  4, 

3 

2960  DATA 

0, 

-42, 

255, 

-2, 

0, 

-11 

2450  DATA 

-3, 

7, 

—  3, 

3, 

—  8, 

0 

2970  DATA 

255, 

“4, 

63, 

-3, 

15, 

-2 

2460  D  ATA 

“5, 

255, 

63, 

-12, 

255, 

-2 

2980  DATA 

1. 

—2, 

7, 

-250, 

255, 

-3 

2470  DATA 

15, 

0, 

-2, 

15, 

—2, 

31 

2990  DATA 

127, 

“21, 

255, 

-2, 

127, 

-52 

2400  DATA 

-7, 

255, 

—  4, 

0, 

-8. 

255 

3O00  DATA 

255, 

—  2, 

127, 

-12, 

255, 

127 

2490  DATA 

-3, 

0, 

—  2, 

1, 

-2, 

3 

3010  DATA 

-7, 

255, 

127, 

-10, 

255, 

”2 

2500  DATA 

-2, 

15, 

—  9, 

0, 

”2, 

3 

3020  DATA 

127, 

-40, 

255, 

-3, 

127, 

-42 

2510  DATA 

-2, 

7, 

—3, 

15, 

3, 

-2 

3030  DATA 

255, 

—  2, 

127, 

-34, 

255 

2520  DATA 

0, 

-2, 

3, 

“3, 

7, 

-2 

2530  DATA 

3, 

-4, 

0, 

“3, 

7, 

-16 

Subroutine  to  Invert  Bit  Images 

2540  DATA 

25 5, 

-3, 

0, 

-6, 

3. 

-7 

2550  DATA 

0, 

-9, 

255, 

—34, 

0, 

-10 

3100  REM  -  flip  1 

a  Graphic  Sit  linage  Upside-Down 

2560  DATA 

255, 

0, 

-5, 

255, 

-2 

3110  REM 

2570  DATA 

0, 

-4, 

255, 

“3, 

31, 

-2 

3120  IF  ITEM,% 

=  255  OR  ITEM.%  = 

0  THEN  RETURN 

2590  DATA 

15, 

—  9, 

255, 

—3, 

0, 

-24 

3130  GR  APHIC.BYTE.  % 

=  ITEM,% 

2590  DATA 

255, 

“5, 

0, 

-9, 

255, 

-9 

3140GRAPH1CFLIP.%  = 

=  0 

2600  DATA 

0, 

— 10, 

255, 

“11, 

0, 

-2 

3150  POWER. OF. 2* %  = 

7 

2610  DATA 

1, 

—  8, 

255, 

-11, 

0, 

-10 

316C  WHILE  GRAPHICS  YTE.%  )  0  AND  POWER.OE2+%  >=  0 

2620  DATA 

255, 

—  3, 

0, 

-11. 

255, 

127 

3170  WORK.X.%  =  2 a  POWER, OE2h  % 

2630  DATA 

-3, 

255, 

-2, 

63, 

“13, 

255 

3180  WORK.Y.%  =  GR  APHJCBYTE.  %  - 

WORK.X.% 

2640  DATA 

-14, 

0, 

-4, 

15, 

—  3, 

3 

3190  IF  WORK+Y.*&  ) 

=  0  THEN  CRAPHICFLIP.% 

= 

2650  DATA 

-29, 

0, 

-18, 

255, 

“3, 

0 

GRAPHIC . FLIP,  %  +  2  a  (7 

-  POWER. OF, 2>°/o) 

2660  DATA 

-14, 

255, 

—3, 

0, 

—  51, 

255 

GRAFHICBYTE.%  = 

=  WORK  .Y.  % 

2670  DATA 

-s. 

0, 

-32, 

25S, 

—  2, 

0 

3200  POWER.  OF.2t% 

-  POWER  .OF.  2.  %  - 

■  1 

2680  DATA 

-10, 

255, 

—3, 

0, 

-0, 

255 

3210  WEND 

2690  DATA 

-7, 

0, 

-19, 

255, 

7, 

-34 

3220  ITEM.  %  = 

GR  A  PHIC ,  FLIP  % 

2700  DATA 

255, 

-2, 

0, 

—  9, 

255, 

-5 

3230  RETURN 

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245 


SOFTALK  IBM:  1983— 


ThE  'VE'XR  in  Software 


This  is  an  index  of  software  reviewed  in  Softalk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  during  1983*  The  index  includes  programs 
reviewed  in  columns  and  feature  articles  as  well  as  those  reviewed  in  the  "Marketalk  Reviews"  section. 


TITLE 

COMPANY 

Apparat  Home  Finance 

Apparat 

Apple  Panic 

Broderbund 

The  Author 

Basic  Development 

Phoenix  Performance 
Systems 

System 

B.C.  The  Business 

Softool  Systems 

Card  Organizer 

Specific  Software 

Beneath  Apple  Manor: 
Spedal  Edition 

Quality  Software 

Big  Top 

Bottom  Line 

Funtaslic 

Strategist 

Ash  Ion-Tale 

BPS  Business 

Business  & 

Graphics 

Professional  Software 

Bug  Off 

Bella  Software 

Bulk  Mailer 

Satori  Software 

Buzzard  Bait 

Sirius  Software 

California  10  Pak 

California  Software 
Products 

Chart-Master 

Decision  Resources 

Chomps 

Ensign  Software 

Cosmic  Crusader 

Funtaslic 

The  Creator 

Software  Technology 
for  Computers 

Crossfire 

Sierra  On-Line 

Cyborg 

Sentient  Software 

Data  Fax 

Link  Systems 

Demon's  forge 

Saber  Software 

dGraph 

Fox  It  G  alter 

Diet  Analyzer 

The  Dow  Jones 

SimSoft 

Reporter 

iBM 

Easy proof 

Norelt  Data  Systems 

0087  Drivers 

Micro  Ware 

Executive  Suite 

Armonk 

Fast  Graphs 

I  nnovat  iv  e  Softwa  re 

Federation 

Avant-Garde  Creations 

The  FinalWord 

Financier  Personal 

Mark  of  the  Unicorn 

Series 

Financier 

FlippinGame 

Friendly  ware  PC 

SCC  Games 

Arcade 

Friendly  ware 

Graph'nCak 

Desk  Top 

Computer  Software 

Graph  writer 

Home  Accountant 

Graphic 

Com  rnunkalinns 

Plus 

Continental  Software 

JnShapc 

DEC  Software 

The  Instructor 

individual  Software 

/Format 

Ken  Liston's 

Professional 

Tall  Tree  Systems 

Blackjack 

Intelligent  Statements 

Keynote 

Mailing  List 

Advanced  Software 
Interface 

Manager 

IBM 

Master  Miner 

Funtaslic 

MasterType 

Lightning  Software 

Med  man 

Microsoft  C 

Galleria  Micro 

Systems 

Compiler 

Microsoft 

Microsoft  Decathlon 
Microsoft  Flight 

Microsoft 

Simulator 

Microsoft 

Microsoft  Word 

Microsoft 

Micro-Tax 

Microcomputer 

(Level  11) 

Taxuystems 

Move-it 

Woolf  Software 

MultiMate 

Software  Systems 

mu  Math 

The  Soft  Warehouse 

NEC  Print 

Night  Mission 

Aegis  Systems 

Pinball 

The  Norton 

SubLogic 

Utilities 

Peter  Norton 

ISSUE 

PACE 

TJTLE 

June 

97 

The  Norton 

April 

76 

Utilities  Version  2 

October 

57 

Nutritionist 

LDir 

1-2-3 

April 

82 

The  Optimizer 

Pliant  ir 

April 

54 

Per  fin 

August 

80 

PCcrayon 

September 

82 

PC-File 

October 

45 

PC-Man 

PC/PFP 

October 

96 

PC-Talk  III 

January 

48 

PC  Tutor 

July 

136 

October 

tc 

Personal  Tax 

August 

77 

Planner 

Personal 

October 

96 

WordPerfect 

February 

70 

PFS:Grapk 

April 

S6 

PFS:Wrilc 

November 

134 

Plan  1040 

PmverText 

January 

49 

Print-It 

June 

1  IS 

Professional  Tax 

February 

66 

Plan 

October 

60 

ProKey 

October 

96 

Quotrix 

June 

117 

Random  Mouse 
Proofreader 

July 

135 

Real  Estate 

May 

102 

Analysis  Package  (REAP! 

Ma  rch 

70 

Shoebox 

January 

47 

Smart  com  If 

October 

96 

December 

244 

Snack  Attack  11 

April 

88 

Spanish  for  the 

Traveler 

June 

97 

Spclbuund 

March 

76 

SPF/FC 

May 

103 

May 

tot 

States' n'Caps 

October 

96 

StretchCalc 

Styx 

Super  Cbartman  IJ 

June 

97 

SurePrint 

December 

140 

January 

48 

Suspended 

April 

78 

TaxCalc 

TaxCut 

January 

46 

April 

84 

Tax  Manager 

Tax  Mode 

Tax  Preparer 

October 

S3 

Tax  Relief 

September 

82 

(Module  JJJ! 

November 

137 

Three  Game  Package 

July 

1 34 

Tigers  in  the  Snow 

August 

72 

Touch  Typing  Made 

August 

79 

Easy! 

Tycoon 

February 

69 

Type  A  Learn 

October 

142 

Type- Writer 

The  Ultimate 

April 

58 

Versa  Form 

October 

55 

November 

140 

VisiSpeil 

August 

GO 

YisiWord 

January 

49 

Wizardry 

Word  Attack! 

September 

79 

WordPerfect 

January 

45 

The  Word  Plus 

COMPANY 

ISSUE 

PAGE 

Peter  Norton 

September 

79 

N-Squared  Computing 

June 

117 

Bourbakl 

September 

04 

Lotus  Development 

October 

96 

Super  Soft 

January 

46 

Designer  Software 

July 

131 

Digital  Engineering 

Group 

June 

97 

PCsoftware 

May 

100 

User  Supported 

Software 

June 

123 

Orion  Software 

March 

70 

Best  Programs 

May 

97 

Freeware 

August 

76 

Comprehensive 

Software  Support 

Electronic  Data 

February 

70 

Systems 

Satellite  Software 

April 

58 

International 

September 

73 

Software  Publishing 

October 

96 

Software  Publishing 

November 

140 

Software  1040 

May 

108 

Beaman  Porter 

January 

40 

M.A.R  Systems 

January 

49 

Aardvark  Software 

April 

58 

RoscSofi 

April 

54 

Insnft 

June 

123 

Aspen  Software 

May 

102 

Exetu  wa  re 

November 

123 

Tech  land  Systems 

July 

133 

Hayes  Microcomputer 
Products 

August 

76 

Funtaslic 

January 

49 

Southwestern  Data  Systems 

June 

121 

Blythe  Valley 

Software 

December 

246 

Rogue  River 

Software 

October 

52 

AJphanetics 

Software 

June 

121 

Multisoft 

September 

83 

Windmill  Software 

October 

55 

Graphic  Software 

October 

96 

Dickinson 

Associates 

September 

82 

infocom 

October 

55 

Precision  Financial 

Systems 

March 

48 

United  Micro 

Systems 

March 

48 

Micro  Lab 

March 

48 

Sawney  Software 

April 

55 

FfowardSoft 

April 

58 

Micro  Vision 

April 

58 

Software 

Laboratories 

March 

76 

Strategic 

Simulations 

March 

74 

Alkazar  Associates 

November 

137 

Blue  Chip  Software 

December 

240 

SimSoft 

November 

137 

Martin  Oakus 

November 

137 

Computer  Creations 

December 

239 

Applied  Software 

Technology 

February 

69 

Vih-icorp 

October 

61 

Visicorp 

October 

61 

Sir-lech 

January 

42 

Davidson  &  Assoc. 

March 

74 

Satellite  Software 

International 

September 

73 

Oasis  Systems 

May 

102 

246 


softalk 


Unless  of/ieru>t5£  indicated,  software  listed  runs  in  DOS  1,1  or  2.0  with 
either  display  adapter  and  requires  64K  and  at  least  one  disk  drive , 


The  Ultimate 

Software  bearing  the  name  The  Ultimate  sounds  too  good  to  be  true. 
Has  perfection  finally  been  achieved  by  a  word  processor?  This  prod¬ 
uct's  name  surely  indicates  that  there  are  none  finer  to  be  found  any¬ 
where. 

What  factors  would  make  a  product  superlative  in  every  respect? 
One  would  be  a  powerful  text  editor  allowing  for  the  polished  creation 
and  modification  of  one's  words.  Another  would  be  simple  commands 
that  are  easy  to  execute  and  easy  to  recall  including  formatting  and 
print  commands  that  don't  distract  from  the  creative  processes  of  writ' 
ing.  The  inclusion  of  a  typeahead  buffer  also  would  score  points. 

The  "perfect"  product  would  permit  viewing  of  the  printed  page 
prior  to  the  actual  printing  process.  The  main  menu  would  display  all 
functions.  And  why  not  include  a  spelling  checker,  database  manage- 
mem  system  (or  DIF  file  translator),  mailing  list  management,  and  a 
spreadsheet  to  boot?  Does  this  sound  like  a  Christmas  wish  list? 

All  the  criteria  just  named  are  present  in  The  Ultimate ,  However, 
the  clumsiness  of  some  of  the  program's  modules  and  the  product's  lack 
of  finesse  in  presentation  leave  something  to  be  desired. 

The  Ultimate  is  an  assemblage  of  four  modules:  Word,  Base  (data¬ 
base  manager),  and  Mail  program  (included  on  the  main  program 
disk),  and  Spell  (on  a  second  disk).  When  you  boot  the  main  program 
disk,  you're  in  DOS;  you  have  to  ask  the  DOS  command  line  inter¬ 
preter  to  run  the  program  of  your  choice.  Once  you've  done  that,  you 
get  a  banner  menu  for  the  specified  program,  from  which  you  must 
make  additional  choices.  A  warning:  While  a  banner  menu  is  on  your 
screen,  avoid  hitting  the  semicolon  at  all  costs.  Otherwise  drive  A  will 
take  that  keypress  as  a  personal  insult  and  dump  you  back  to  DOS. 

Choices  from  the  banner  menu  for  Word,  the  word  processing  por¬ 
tion  of  The  Ultimate ,  are  T  (to  list  the  directory  table).  O  (for  an  old 
file),  and  N  (for  a  new  file).  Some  of  The  Ultimate  s clumsiness  has  to  do 
with  the  reading  of  disk  directories.  For  example,  many  users  prefer  to 
store  their  data  on  a  disk  in  drive  B,  While  pressing  T  will  certainly  give 
you  the  directory  of  the  disk  in  drive  A,  there  is  no  way  to  gain  access 
to  drive  B  from  this  menu.  To  do  so  you  must  remove  both  disks  from 
their  original  drives,  place  the  storage  disk  in  drive  A,  and  issue  the  T 
command  once  again.  After  you  read  this  disk's  directory,  you  must 
return  the  disk  in  drive  A  to  drive  B  and  reinsert  the  main  program  disk 
in  drive  A.  Confusing?  Just  a  little. 

Once  you're  in  the  word  processor.  The  Ultimate  starts  operating  in 
a  far  more  likable  manner.  When  you  begin  editing  a  new  file,  a  text¬ 
editing  screen  is  revealed  that  shows  the  current  file's  name,  the  cursor  s 
position,  and  the  total  number  of  document  lines.  Below  this  informa¬ 
tion  another  line  represents  the  master  ruler  complete  with  tab  stops. 
Although  the  screen-refresh  cycle  seems  slow,  the  word  processor  is 
more  than  adequate  for  most  needs. 

The  numeric  keypad  generally  controls  cursor  movement.  Charac¬ 
ter  and  word  cursor  movement  are  restricted  to  the  line  on  which  the 


cursor  rests;  you  may  find  The  Ultimate's  lack  of  cursor  wordwrap 
inconvenient. 

The  FlO  key  allows  you  to  move  the  cursor  in  a  variety  of  ways;  it 
also  produces  the  critical  function  menu.  Pressing  FlO  followed  by  L 
will  get  you  a  query  asking  how  many  lines  you  want  to  "leap"  through 
your  document.  Your  answer  of  +20  moves  you  ahead  ten  lines,  while 
a  —10  takes  you  back  that  many.  A  B  places  you  at  the  start  of  the 
document,  an  T  at  the  end  Function  keys  also  control  the  printing  and 
saving  of  documents,  the  setting  of  printer  values,  the  file-merging 
function,  and  deletions  by  character  or  line. 

You  can  reset  the  master  ruler's  tabs  through  the  function  key's 
menu  by  pressing  the  tab  key.  The  Ultimate  justifies  paragraph  by  para¬ 
graph.  You  must  position  the  cursor  in  just  the  right  place  once  the  first 
paragraph  has  been  justified  in  order  for  the  nexL  block  of  text  to  be 
justified  also. 

The  FlO  functions  are  extremely  well  programmed.  You  may  with¬ 
draw  (simply  by  pressing  W)  as  many  as  twenty-five  lines  of  text  from 
buffer  storage.  These  may  be  reinserted  at  any  text  location.  To  use  the 
same  stored  lines  more  than  once,  a  duplicate  option  is  available. 


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for  the  IBM  Persoyial  Computer  December  1983 


247 


A  fine  replace/find  function  highlights  the  selected  string  and  asks 
you  whether  you  want  to  replace  all  the  selected  characters,  replace 
none  of  them,  or  terminate  the  function  without  making  any  changes. 
This  replace  function  is  of  particular  value  when  you're  using  the  spell¬ 
ing  checker,  as  is  the  merge  function,  which  calls  into  your  present  doc¬ 
ument  any  other  document— from  either  drive  A  or  B. 

Another  feature  merits  a  loud  hurrah.  Assume  you've  written  a 
lengthy  document  that  you  try  to  save  to  drive  B,  but  a  cold  pro¬ 
nouncement  indicating  there's  not  enough  disk  space  appears  on¬ 
screen.  What  to  do7  You  can  either  place  another  data  disk  in  drive  B  or 
call  F10  to  the  rescue.  One  of  the  items  in  FlO's  menus  is  a  kill  function. 
Kill  presents  you  with  a  number  of  choices:  You  can  either  lose  the  text 
you're  currently  creating  or  destroy  a  file  that  is  no  longer  needed  or  is 
of  a  lower  priority  than  your  current  file  on  the  B  drive.  Kill  removes 
the  files  you  indicate,  allowing  you  to  save  the  current  file. 

The  Ultimate  can  take  advantage  of  many  different  printers,  and 
defaults  can  be  changed  at  will. 

After  you  write  a  document,  you  can  run  the  material  through  the 
Spell  program,  which  displays  the  total  number  of  words  checked,  the 
number  that  matched,  the  number  that  didn't  match,  and  the  actual 
words  not  matched.  All  this  appears  on  screen  as  the  document  is  read. 
A  final  report  includes  an  alphabetical  listing  of  the  misspelled  words; 
these  are  held  in  a  temporary  file  called  Spell. new  for  your  retrieval. 

The  best  way  to  check  the  list  of  misspelled  words  against  your  doc¬ 
ument  requires  that  you  enter  the  Word  program  and  request  the  file 
that  you  checked  for  spelling.  When  this  file  comes  on  screen,  the  cur¬ 
sor  is  positioned  at  the  start  of  the  document.  A  press  of  F10  brings  the 
function  menu  to  the  top  of  the  screen.  All  that's  needed  now  is  to 
merge  Spell. new  and  all  the  misspelled  words  are  brought  to  the  top  of 
the  screen.  Using  the  replace/find  function,  the  correction  process  takes 
almost  no  time  at  all. 


Philately  Just  Gave  the 
Personal  Computer 
Its  Stamp  of  Approval! 

Small  wonder.  SoftStyle’s  Philatelic  Management  System 
for  the  Personal  Computer  has  added  a  whole  new 
dimension  to  stamp  collecting. 

Now  you  can  efficiently  manage  your  collection...  and  have 
more  time  to  enjoy  collecting.  Every  level  of  philatelist  will 
find  this  superior  software  can  grow  with  his  collection 
needs.  We’ve  provided  everything  you  need  to  start  today, 
with  flexibility  for  growth.  You  don’t  have  to  design  and 
code  a  complex  data  base.  There  are  over  40  programs  in 
this  powerful,  yet  easy-to-use  package,  that  has  been 
developed  by  software  professionals  and  philatelists. 


Pita**  sand  me: 

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Special  im roduclcry  Price  until  Jan  1, 1984— $219. 

When  Ordering:  Include  your  name,  address,  signature, 
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I![J 

SoftStyle 


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7192  Kalanianaole  Hwy.,  Suite  200 
Dept.  L10,  Honolulu,  HI  96625 
Phone:  (808)  396*6368 


Another  caution:  When  adding  to  or  deleting  from  the  dictionary, 
you  need  at  least  130K  of  free  space  in  an  alternative  drive,  because  the 
program  Spell.  1st  initially  contains  13,000  words.  This  file  is  copied  to 
your  auxiliary  drive  to  form  Spell. old,  which  is  generated  from  the 
Spell.  1st  file.  Words  are  added  or  deleted  to  the  Spell. old  file  based  on 
the  corrections  found  in  the  Spell. new  file  generated  when  you  checked 
for  misspelled  words.  Spell. old  becomes  the  updated  Spell.  1st  file  when 
the  corrections  have  been  completed.  You  can  then  print  your  diction¬ 
ary's  words  if  you  wish. 

The  database  managing  program,  Base,  could  well  become  your  fa¬ 
vorite.  It  allows  you  to  design  your  own  forms — and  the  editing  proc¬ 
ess  is  simple.  Again,  old  or  new  files  may  be  requested,  and  a  functions 
menu  similar  to  that  provided  by  F10  in  the  word  processing  program 
allows  for  easy  manipulation  of  your  data.  Base  was  not  designed  to 
meet  the  DBMS  needs  of  a  large  company,  but  it's  a  fine  system  for 
home  or  small-business  use. 

The  Mail  program  produces  mailing  labels  and  personalized  letters 
with  the  help  of  coded  documents  created  by  the  Word  program.  Func¬ 
tion-key  assignments  control  the  input  of  additional  information  to 
already  created  forms  as  well  as  the  reconfiguration  of  printer  pa¬ 
rameters.  Special  sorting  is  conducted  by  setting  specific  group  values 
that  allow  you  up  to  twenty-six  sort  choices. 

You  specify  control  group  A,  with  conditions  set  from  alphabetical 
or  numerical  to  specific  search  characters.  Pressing  F5  merges  the  data 
to  the  form  and  dumps  the  result  to  the  printer.  Because  the  programs 
are  modular,  you  may  relocate  any  program  you  wish  without  incur¬ 
ring  any  problems.  A  handy  feature  indeed. 

In  summary,  The  Ultimate  is  far  from  terrible,  but  it  is  not  what  the 
name  implies.  Minor  errors  within  the  programs  could  have  been 
eliminated  through  proper  product  testing.  The  documentation  itself  is 
good,  but  the  printing  quality  produces  an  overall  mediocre  effect.  For 
example,  a  copy  of  an  example  document  contained  on  the  main  pro¬ 
gram  disk  is  almost  illegible.  The  $385  price  seems  a  bit  high  in  light  of 
other  products  available  for  the  pc.  HL 

The  Ultimate ,  by  Computer  Creations  (766  El  Camino  Real,  San  Carlos,  CA 
94070;  414-595-4466).  $385. 

Tycoon 

Financial  simulation  games  for  the  pc  had  best  be  good.  After  all,  a  lot 
of  pinstriped  users  out  there  dabble  daily  in  the  real  thing.  Many  of 
them  probably  bought  computers  as  just  one  more  weapon  in  the  arse¬ 
nal  of  the  serious  investor.  But  for  those  of  us  who  would  like  to  risk 
thousands  without  the  pressure  of  wondering  whether  we'll  be  going 
Chapter  11  the  next  morning,  there  is  Tycoon. 

Refreshingly,  Tycoon  does  not  deal  with  the  stock  market.  Grand¬ 
mothers  trade  stocks.  Rather,  this  is  the  high-powered  world  of  the 
commodities  trader.  Swiss  francs.  T-bills.  Gold.  Silver.  Pork  bellies.  A 
turn  for  the  worse  in  Florida's  weather  and  you  really  can  find  yourself 
busted  overnight. 

Tycoon  starts  you  off  with  $10,000  seed  money  and  some  good  ad¬ 
vice.  A  highlight  of  the  program  is  the  clear,  well-presented  documen¬ 
tation,  which  familiarizes  you  both  with  the  principles  behind 
commodity  trading  and  the  rules  of  this  computer  version.  While  the 
rules  are  simple  enough  to  enable  someone  to  sit  down  and  start  play¬ 
ing  immediately  after  skimming  the  documentation,  there  are  enough 
subtleties  later  in  the  game  to  challenge  an  experienced  player. 

Information  is  available  within  the  game  in  the  form  of  newspaper 
headlines  and  graphs.  The  headlines  provide  you  with  clues  as  to  how 
the  various  commodities  are  faring.  Obviously,  if  a  hurricane  hits  Flor¬ 
ida,  you'd  be  better  off  investing  in  soybeans  than  orange  juice. 

The  graphs  are  numerous  and  somewhat  confusing.  You  can  see  the 
overall  performance  of  the  commodities  index  or  examine  the  records 
of  your  own  investments  in  a  somewhat  bewildering  variety  of  ways. 
Beginners,  however,  will  probably  be  content  with  a  single  graph, 
which  is  all  the  program  provides  unless  you  ask  for  more. 


248 


SOftCllk  for  the  IBM.  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


If  flying  your  IBM  PC  got  any  more 
realistic,you’d  need  a  license. 


You  took  off  from  Boston-Logan  with  nothing  above 
you  but  blue  sky.  Now  you're  5,000  feet  over  Long  Island 
Sound,  and  New  York-La  Guardia,  your  destination  air¬ 
port,  reports  high  winds.  Connecticut-Bridgeport  is  the  logi¬ 
cal  alternate,  but  clouds  with  a  low  ceiling  are  going 
to  make  life  difficult,  You're  in  for  an  instrument  approach 
The  plane  inside  your  PC.  Run  the  Microsoft*  Flight 
Simulator  on  your  IBM  Personal  Computer,  and  put  your¬ 
self  in  the  pilot's  seat  of  a  Cessna  182  You  control 
everything  from  flaps  and  ailerons  right  down  to  the  magneto 
switch.  You  can  even  navigate  using  radio  signals  and 
fly  totally  by  instruments  if  you  run  into  bad  weather.  Best 
of  all,  Flight  Simulator  features  a  full-color,  out-the-window 
flight  display  With  detailed  graphics  that  closely  simulate 
a  pilot's  actual  perspective. 

The  world  beneath  your  lingers.  Once  youYe  in  flight 
don't  worry  about  running  out  of  airspace.  You  can 
take  off  and  land  at  over  20  airports  from  Los  Angeles  to 
New  York,  Each,  with  its  own  particular  set  of  challenges. 
The  learning  curve.  In  its  "easy"  mode,  the  Flight  Simu¬ 
lator  gives  new  pilots  an  aircraft  which  readily  forgives 
errors  in  flight  engine  control,  and  navigation.  As  you 


gain  skill  move  into  "reality"  mode.  Then  get  ready  for 
simulations  of  everything  from  running  out  of  fuel  to 
carburetor  icing. 

The  Ace  in  your  soul.  When  you  think  youVe  earned 
your  wings,  turn  the  clock  back  for  a  round  of  "British 
Ace."  Fly  into  a  World  War  I  air  battle  complete  with 
scouting  flights,  bombing  runs  and  hair-raising  dogfights. 
Destroy  your  targets,  shoot  down  the  enemy  fighters, 
and  you  just  might  survive  to  be  decorated. 

Throttle  on.  Take  a  test  flight  at  your  computer  store  or 
software  dealer.  Once  you've  been  aloft,  you'll  want 
to  buckle  up  behind  your  own  IBM  PC  with  the  Microsoft 
Flight  Simulator  It's  the  closest  you  can  get  to  flying. 
Without  leaving  your  nest. 

BETTER  TOOLS  FOR  MICROCOMPUTERS 

MICROSOFT. 

MICROSOFT  CORPORATION 
10700  NORTH  UP  WAY 
B  ELL  E  VU  E  WASH  I NGTQ  N  90004 

Microsoft  is  a  registered  trademark  and  the  Mkrosoft  logo 
is  a  trademark  of  Microsoft  Corporation 
IBM  is  a  registered  trademark  of  international  Business  Machines  Corporation 


WMMlj 


The  most  powerful  UNIX™-compatible 
operating  system  available  for  the  IBM  PC™, 
IBM  XT™  and  compatibles. 

Now  you  can  have  the  multi-user,  multitasking 
programming  capability  of  a  mainframe  on  a 
microcomputer.  The  UNIX-compatible  environ¬ 
ment  of  COHERENT™  lets  you  take  C  code 
developed  using  UNIX  V7  system  utilities  and 
compile  and  run  it  on  the  IBM  PC,  IBM  XT 
and  Corona. ' 

COHERENT’S  highly-optimized  kernel  lets  you 
access  over  145  different  commands  including  a 
C-compiler,  a  text-formatter  and  LEX  and 
YACC.  Extensive  hard  disk  and  memory  card 
support  is  available  now.  By  the  time  this  ad 
appears  more  devices  and  more  IBM  PC 
compatibles  will  be  supported. 

The  cost  —  far  less  than  the  cost  of  similar 
UNIX-based  operating  systems  and  when  you 
buy  COHERENT  from  NCI  you  receive  all  the 
documentation  and  technical  support  you  need 
to  operate  it. 

Call  or  write 


0  Network  Consulting  Inc. 

Discovery  Park, 

3700  Gilmore  Way,  Suite  110, 
Burnaby,  B.C.  Canada  V5G  4M1 
(604]  430-3466 

COHERENT  is  a  trade  mark  of  Mark  Williams  Co.  UNIX  is  a  trade 
mark  of  Bell  Laboratories.  IBM  PC  and  IBM  XT  are 
trade  marks  of  International  Business  Machines  Corporation. 


The  game  is  not  simply  buy  low  and  sell  high,  though.  After  the 
would-be  tycoon  has  made  some  money  and  obtained  a  few  promo¬ 
tions  in  status  (from  novice  to  broker  to  investor  and  so  on),  he  or  she  is 
allowed  to  buy  both  long  and  short.  Buying  long,  which  is  the  only 
option  at  the  beginning  of  the  game,  means  that  you  expect  prices  to  go 
up.  Buying  short,  however,  means  that  you  expect  prices  to  go  down. 

As  a  player  advances,  the  number  of  commodities  that  can  be  in¬ 
vested  in  increases.  While  you  must  start  out  trading  in  wheat,  cattle, 
soybeans,  and  pork  bellies,  you  could  end  up  dealing  with  T-bills, 
Swiss  francs,  and  Japanese  yen. 

Within  the  limits  of  a  simulation,  the  program  does  an  excellent  job 
of  imitating  life.  Several  people  can  play  the  game  at  once,  and  posi¬ 
tions  can  be  saved  and  returned  to  later.  Only  one  game  at  a  time  can  be 
saved,  however. 

The  program's  greatest  flaw  is  the  obviousness  of  most  of  the  head¬ 
lines.  In  the  real  world,  trends  are  not  as  easily  interpreted.  Neverthe¬ 
less,  Tycoon  does  offer  an  opportunity  to  explore  a  fascinating  world 
from  the  safety  of  one's  computer.  JB 

Tycoon,  by  Jim  Zuber,  Blue  Chip  Software  (19818  Ventura  Boulevard, 
Woodland  Hills,  CA  91364;  213-881-8288).  $59.95. 

InShape 

InShape  won't  tell  you  not  to  eat  that  Big  Mac.  InShape  won't  tell  you 
not  to  follow  it  up  with  a  chocolate  milkshake.  No,  you  have  to  supply 
the  rebukes  and  recriminations  yourself.  But  the  pain  of  keyboarding 
the  Big  Mac  (563  calories— ouch!)  and  the  chocolate  shake  (383  calo¬ 
ries— ouch!  ouch!)  on  your  daily  food-consumption  chart  will  have 
you  treading  the  straight  and  narrow.  If  you've  been  virtuous,  you'll  be 
rewarded  by  watching  the  lines  that  plot  your  weight  on  the  bar  graph 
plummet  and— if  you've  been  running  the  treadmill  and  amassing  aero¬ 
bic  points— by  increased  physical  fitness. 

InShape  helps  you  track  your  fitness  goals  by  recording  daily  food 
intake  and  points  for  aerobic  exercise,  and  it  stores  and  plots  that  infor¬ 
mation  for  fifty-two  weeks. 

A  series  of  menus  (not  the  food  kind)  prompts  you  to  choose  be¬ 
tween  food  selection  and  exercise  charts.  You  record  your  daily  diet 
first  by  selecting  a  food  group  from  the  thirteen  (plus  one  custom)  food 
groups  given.  You  then  select  an  item  from  the  food  dictionary  and 
enter  the  food  for  a  particular  meal  or  snack  by  moving  the  cursor  and 
pressing  a  function  key.  Almost  all  of  InShape' s  actions  are  carried  out 
through  function  keys,  cursor  movements,  and  carriage  returns,  so  you 
don't  have  to  retype  the  food  entries  or  the  exercise  options. 

The  food  dictionary  has  one  thousand  entries  taken  from  “the  latest 
USD  A  sources"  and,  in  the  case  of  the  fast-food  items,  from  informa¬ 
tion  supplied  by  the  particular  chains.  This  leads  to  some  interesting 
discrepancies:  The  Wendy's  basic  hamburger  has  470  calories  and  34 
units  of  carbohydrate,  while  the  McDonald's  no-frills  hamburger  pur¬ 
ports  to  have  255  calories  and  10  units  of  carbohydrates.  (And  the  Mc¬ 
Donald's  hamburger  somehow  manages  to  have  more  fat  than  the 
Wendy's  burger,  even  though  it  has  fewer  calories  and  less  carbohy¬ 
drates.)  DEG  disclaims  any  responsibility  for  errors  in  the  database. 
When  looking  up  "bun,  hamburger,"  to  see  if  the  McDonald's 
difference  might  be  the  bun,  you  find  that  the  hamburger  bun  rates  a 
big  0  across  the  board.  What  we  have  here  is  a  new  diet  food,  far  better 
than  celery. 

Another  database  problem:  What  are  the  units  of  measure?  The 
USD  A  counter  is  generally  broken  down  by  milligrams,  but  this  is 
never  made  clear.  The  unit-of-measure  problem  also  occurs  in  the  aero¬ 
bic  section,  where  exercises  are  awarded  "points"  but  no  indication  is 
given  of  what  constitutes  a  point. 

The  dictionary  itself  is  organized  by  food  type:  dairy,  meat  and 
poultry,  sweets,  seafood,  alcoholic  drinks,  vegetables,  and  so  on.  Each 
food  type  is  broken  down  by  calories  and  amount  (grams?  milligrams? 
unit  x?)  of  carbohydrates,  fats,  and  proteins. 

One  thousand  items  may  seem  like  a  lot  of  food — indeed,  it's  a 


softcilk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


A  physician-designed,  comprehensive  weight 

management  program. 

Guiding  you  to  a  new  eating  and  exercise 

lifestyle. 

Allowing  you  to  monitor  your  food  intake  and 
energy  expenditure  instantaneously. 

Graphic  reports  provide  feedback  on  your  long 
range  weight  loss  success. 


introductory  Offer  69.95 

Mall  to: 

Healthware/1504  leander  Rd. /Georgetown,  1X78626/(512)  863-6910 
Enclose  $69.95  for  each  package  and  $3,00  shipping  and  handling. 

□  Send  me  copy(s)  of  the  Master  Control  Diet  and  Exercise 
Program. 

□  Check  or  money  order  enclosed 

□  MasterCard  □  VISA 

Name*  


Valuable  programmed  instruction  in  exercise 
and  nutrition  and  other  related  topics. 

A  complete  diet  guide  that  will  show  you  how  to 
lose  weight  without  relying  on  willpower. 


•  BEALTBWABB' 


Dealer  inquiries  invited 


Address: 


City: 

state:  Zip: 

Card  No.: 

Expiration  Date: 

Bank  No.  (if  MC): 

Signature: 

MONEY-BACK  GUARANTEE] 

Return  program  package  within  30  days  if  not  completely  satisfied 
and  receive  full  refund. 


larger  selection  than  that  offered  by  other  diet  software— but  it  is  easy 
to  stump  the  food  dictionary.  There  are,  however,  some  very  exotic 
items:  snails;  animal  crackers;  human  milk;  and  brains,  all  kinds.  If 
you  are  given  to  excess,  or  if  you  eat  anything  more  complex  than  a 
boiled  egg,  you  can  customize  the  various  food  categories  with  addi¬ 
tions  of  your  choice  (it's  up  to  you  to  supply  the  data).  There  is  also  a 
custom  section  allowing  you  to  enter  values  for  frequently  consumed 
items  such  as  your  favorite  spinach /walnut  lasagna  or  chocolate 
Amaretto  cheesecake.  Unfortunately,  there  is  no  method  of  transferring 
one  of  the  meal  summaries  to  the  custom  section,  but  it  doesn't  cost  a 
great  deal  of  energy  to  write  the  values  down  and  keyboard  them. 

Supplying  the  values  and  adding  up  calorie  totals  for  the  separate 
components  of  lasagna  may  be  an  onerous  chore,  but  you  would  have 
to  struggle  through  it  only  once.  If  you  have  the  food  dictionary  on 
your  program  disk,  accessing  an  entire  category,  which  scrolls  alpha¬ 
betically,  takes  about  a  minute.  If  you  have  two  drives  and  the  food 
dictionary  on  a  second  disk,  the  process  is  not  as  time-consuming. 

Because  of  these  limitations,  and  notwithstanding  the  food  diction¬ 
ary's  specificity,  the  diet  program  can  really  be  used  only  in  a  general 
way  unless  you  follow  a  strict  Weight  Watchers- type  diet.  Even  with  a 
customized  dictionary  and  the  fast-food  listings,  it's  difficult  to  account 
for  restaurant  meals,  especially  the  exotic  cuisine  provided  in  many 
metropolitan  areas. 

Once  you've  input  your  meals,  InShape  will  break  them  down  in 
several  ways  to  give  you  an  idea  of  how  much  protein,  fat,  or  carbohy¬ 
drate  by  food  group  you've  consumed,  how  many  calories,  the  nutri¬ 
tional  value  of  each  meal,  and  the  nutritional  value  in  proportion  to 
your  weight.  By  using  the  plotting  feature,  you  can  compare  daily  fluc¬ 
tuations  of  your  weight  with  any  of  the  nutritional  measures.  For  ex¬ 
ample,  if  you  plot  the  percentage  of  calories  broken  down  by  meal  over 
sixty  days,  you  might  find  that  you  consume  60  percent  of  your  calories 
at  dinner;  to  lose  weight  you  might  consider  eating  a  little  less  in  the 


Contemporary 


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evening.  Or,  if  you  look  at  your  fat  breakdown  by  meal  over  time,  the 
plot  can  give  you  a  vivid  indication  that  your  daily  breakfast  of  fried 
eggs  and  bacon  is  going  to  send  you  to  the  atherosclerosis  ward  before 
you're  fifty 

To  keep  yourself  going  strong,  you  can  start  burning  up  those  calo¬ 
ries  and  getting  those  muscles  into  shape.  You  will  find  that  you  can 
choose  from  twenty-four  aerobic  activities  (running,  swimming,  ski¬ 
ing,  soccer/ hockey,  bicycling,  golfing,  walking,  and  so  forth)  and  a 
custom  exercise,  say,  alligator  wrestling  or  square  dancing.  Again,  as 
with  the  custom  food  items,  you  have  to  supply  the  aerobic  values 
yourself.  The  menu  guides  you  to  select  an  exercise  and  asks  you  how 
much  and  how  long  you  did  it  (you  cannot  use  units  like  "four  times 
around  the  softball  field"  or  "until  I  passed  out").  You  are  assigned  a 
certain  number  of  aerobic  points — for  example,  you  get  6.8  points  for 
running  two  miles  in  twenty-four  minutes.  The  documentation  indi¬ 
cates  that  a  weekly  total  of  thirty  to  forty  points  will  keep  you  glowing. 
To  rack  up  approximately  thirty-five  points  you  would  have  to  walk 
two  miles  in  half  an  hour  every  day,  run  a  mile  in  eight  minutes  each 
day,  or  swim  fifteen  hundred  yards  in  half  an  hour  twice  a  week. 

InShape' s  most  interesting  feature  is  its  ability  to  show  your 
progress  or  lack  of  progress  over  time;  you  can  peruse  your  athletic  and 
dietary  ups  and  downs  for  as  far  back  as  a  year. 

InShape  could  be  used  by  professionals  as  well  as  by  Joe  and  Betty 
Dieter;  dietitians  or  physicians  interested  in  their  patients'  well-being 
could  use  it  to  prescribe  a  program  or  help  keep  their  patients  toeing  the 
line.  It  could  be  especially  useful  in  conjunction  with  The  Nutritionist 
(N-Squared  Computing)  or  Diet  Analyzer  (SimSoft),  two  programs 
that  provide  more  detailed  nutritional  breakdowns. 

It  also  is  suited  to  diet  and  exercise  compulsives  and  those  willing— 
at  least  initially — to  spend  some  time  putting  items  into  the  customized 
menu.  Even  with  streamlining,  inputting  your  data  can  take  a  good  half 
hour.  Truly  compulsive  or  health-conscious  people  may  be  disap¬ 
pointed  that  InShape  tells  nothing  about  sodium,  vitamin,  or  mineral 
content,  which  would  make  this  program  a  genuinely  useful  tool. 

Those  with  a  basic  knowledge  of  nutrition  and  exercise  will  not  be 
hampered  by  InShape' s  lack  of  interpretation  of  diet  and  aerobic 
scores.  Only  one  person  can  use  the  calendars  and  plots  on  each  disk. 
User  support  is  excellent.  InShape  is  not  copy-protected.  KTJ 

InShape,  by  DEG  Software  (11999  Katy  Freeway,  Houston,  TX  77079; 
713-531-6100).  $95. 

Federation 

Federation  is  a  space  shoot-'em-up  of  the  Defender  school;  your  ship 
cruises  above  the  mountain  ranges  of  Drom,  firing  at  enemy  ships  and 
dropping  neutrostatic  bombs  on  the  not  entirely  defenseless  cities  that 
pass  beneath  you  from  time  to  time.  Apparently,  the  Droms  have  been 
supplying  arms  to  some  "nonhuman  members  of  the  Federation,"  and 
this  is  enough  to  precipitate  an  attack  from  the  Feds. 

Unfortunately,  this  is  not  quite  the  "lightning  fast  arcade  game  of 
skill  and  strategy"  that  the  package  promises.  If  lightning  struck  this 
fast  you'd  have  time  to  position  dead  batteries  beneath  it  for  a  recharge. 
The  game  begins  with  the  approach  of  the  sluggish  drone  ships.  They 
can  be  picked  off  quite  easily  at  even  the  highest  of  five  difficulty  levels 
unless  your  attention  wanders.  After  you  have  killed  enough  drones, 
you  are  likely  to  encounter  the  mother  ship,  intelligent  bombs,  or  both. 
Although  the  smart  bombs  are  supposed  to  provide  the  opportunity 
for  strategy,  it  does  not  take  long  to  figure  out  how  to  avoid  them.  The 
mother  ships,  which  are  copped  wholesale  from  Star  Wars's  "Death 
Stars,"  are  considerably  more  difficult  to  eliminate,  despite  their  pon¬ 
derousness.  Nevertheless,  a  little  practice  soon  reveals  when  they  are 
most  vulnerable. 

Graphically,  Federation  is  quite  static.  The  Drom  ships  blow  up 
much  too  neatly,  and  their  debris  is  transparent  to  your  ship.  The  ships 
fly  on  fixed  courses  and  shoot  only  straight  ahead — this  predictability 
seriously  detracts  from  the  game's  ability  to  hold  one's  interest.  And 


252 


softalk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


TRIX  ARE  NOT 
JUST  FOR  KIDS 

Everyone  will  be  hooked 


famous  quotations.  Starting  with 
the  author  and  format,  you  un¬ 
ravel  a  trail  of  dues  with  the  help 
of  crossword  puzzles,  trivia  ques¬ 
tions,  foreign  word  translations, 
and  other  challenging  word 
games. 

Start  easy/  or  be  brave 

TRIX  series  games  offer  several 
different  skill  levels.  You  can  test 
the  waters  as  a  beginner  or  try 
your  hand  as  an  expert.  How 
much  challenge  can  you  stand? 

Play  TRIX  at  your  local  Com¬ 
puter  dealer  today.  Or  call  us  at 
(503)  641-5223*  Learning  was 
never  so  habit- forming. 


Kids,  watch  out  for 
grown-ups 

In  soft's  TRIX  games  are  educa¬ 
tional  fun  for  the  whole  family. 
Ten-year-olds  and  grandparents 
alike  will  lock  horns  with  the 
computer  in  testing  their  word 
skills,  their  memories,  and  their 
quick  wits. 

Parents,  watch 
schoolwork  improve 


Kids  will  pay  attention  to  vocab 
ulary  and  history  lessons  after 
TRIX  moves  in.  They'll  eat  up 
new  words,  facts,  and  thinking 
skills  for  their  next  bout  with 
TRIX  series  games. 


Wordtrix  expands  your  vocabu¬ 
lary  as  you  work  against  the  clock 
to  form  as  many  words  as  you  can 
from  a  grid  of  random  letters. 
There's  only  one  catch:  the  com¬ 
puter  has  a  built-in  dictionary! 

Mystrix  is  the  ultimate 
mystery-adventure  game.  Given 
a  few  clues  and  a  sophisticated 
crime  laboratory,  you  apprehend 
and  question  witnesses,  arrest 
suspects,  and  use  your  best 
deductive  reasoning  to  solve 
hundreds  of  baffling  crimes, 

Quotrix  challenges  you  to 
beat  the  computer  at  figuring  out 


Three  games  to  take  on 


TRIX  Series: 

Educational  Fun  From  Insoft 


Insoft,  Inc. 

P.O.  Box  608 
Beaverton,  OR  97075 

TRIX  series  gar nc s  ivork  t>n  JBM  PCsaeid 
mosi  oompaiibit's. 


S.S.R,  Corp. 

1600  Lyell  Avenue 
Rochester,  NY  14606 
\116]  254-3200 


DOES  YOUR  PRESENT  SYSTEM 
PROVIDE  YOU  WITH  THE 
INFORMATION  YOU  WANT  WHEN  YOU 
WANT  IT  AND  IN  THE  FORMAT 
YOU  WANT  IT? 


S.S.R-’s  provided  computerized  business  solutions  tor 
f3  yrs.  We've  learned  what  you  need  and  well  satisfy 
those  needs  with  INFOTORY™.  Our  software  utilizes  all 
the  flexibility  and  potential  of  the  IBM  PC  1NFOTORY™ 
provides  you  with  a  system  that's  easy  to  team  and 
use,  that  satisfies  the  requirements  of  inventory  ac¬ 
counting,  and  most  importantly,  provides  you  with 
Information  reporting  capability  that  can’t  be  pro¬ 
vided  manually  and  isn't  provided  in  any  other  compu¬ 
terized  inventory  system. 

We  accomplished  this  with  ANYREPORTift\  our  unique 
reporting  feature  that  sets  INFOIORY™  apart  from  any 
other  system.  Using  it,  you  can  get: 

■  Quantities,  amount  sold,  cost  of  sales  by  vendor,  by 
product  type,  or  even  by  key  words  like  "green”  or 
inch”  within  the  description  (sect  green  sofa  or  fitting 
%  inch  copper), 

■  Any  data  you  want— in  alphabetical,  description, 
p/n,  location,  descending  sales  order,  or  in  whatever 
order  and  with  whatever  data  your  purchasing  function, 
accountant,  warehouse  or  sales  people  need  to  per¬ 
form  their  jobs  better. 

■  Summarized  sales  and  cost  of  sales  information  by 
product  category,  by  vendor  or  by  each  item— MID 
and  YTD. 


How  long  would  it  take  you  to  sort  through  and  list,  in 
whatever  order,  your  inventory  items  costing  between 
$13.00  $21,00,  purchased  from  XYZ  company,  that 

have  a  gross  profit  of  between  25%  32%,  that  you 

have  more  than  10  of  in  stock?  Use  ANYREPORT™,  walk 
away  and  the  report's  ready  when  you  return.  This  Is 
only  one  of  the  many  benefits  of  ANYREPORT™, 

To  learn  more  about  the  many  benefits  that  INFOIORY™ 
can  bring  to  your  business,  give  us  a  call  or  stop  In  at 
your  nearest  dealer. 


though  interstellar  war  may  be  hell,  it  shouldn't  be  dull,  JB 

Federation,  by  Avant-Garde  Creations  (Box  30160,  Eugene,  OR  97403;  503- 
345-3043),  $29,95. 

Spelbound 

It  would  be  difficult  to  recommend  this  set  of  word  games  if  you  had  no 
alternative  to  the  data  that  come  with  the  program.  Not  only  are  there 
typos  in  the  definitions  in  the  Definition  game  (the  definitions  them¬ 
selves  seem  dreadful  and  misleading),  but  the  spelling  list  contains  an 
egregious  misspelling;  category  for  category.  This  word  pops  up  every¬ 
where  (as  do  all  the  words  in  the  spelling  list)  from  the  maze  game  to 
hangman.  The  Misspell  game,  which  generates  misspelled  words  for 
you  to  correct,  requires  that  you  change  katagiry  to  category  to  win  a 
few  points.  Not  the  stuff  spelling  bee  winners  are  made  of. 

All  is  not  lost.  The  Setup  program  allows  you  to  correct  misspell¬ 
ings,  change  words  and  definitions,  and  code  the  games  you  want  your 
children  to  play.  By  following  the  documentation's  guideline,  you  can 
change  catagory  to  category  in  no  time. 

This  flexibility  allows  Spelbound  to  be  useful  to  anyone  with  rudi¬ 
mentary  spelling  ability— ages  six  to  one  hundred  and  six.  Six-year- 
olds  will  find  some  of  the  words  included  too  difficult  (incandescent, 
doorjamb ,  inoculate )  and/or  of  little  interest  (accountant,  deterrent, 
hieroglyphics ).  But  its  easy  to  change  the  vocabulary  level  as  often  as 
you  like,  and  the  possibilities  are  delightful.  For  example,  imagine  play¬ 
ing  hangman  and  having  to  guess  your  own  name  to  save  the  unfortu¬ 
nate  felon. 

Spelbound  includes  these  games;  Unscramble  (recognize  caooelcth 
as  chocolate ),  two  levels  of  Mazes  (picking  words  out  of  a  block  of 
letters— when  you  find  the  words  on  the  word  list,  Spelbound  high¬ 
lights  them  in  the  block),  the  venerable  Hangman,  Misspell,  Define 
(guess  the  word  from  its  definition).  Crossword  Puzzle,  Characters 
(count  the  number  of  times  a  letter  appears  in  a  word),  Concentration 
(based  on  the  old  Hugh  Downs  game  show),  and  Alphabet  (arrange  a 
random  list  of  letters  in  correct  alphabetical  order),  Spelbound  makes  it 
easy  to  print  these  games  out,  and  some  are  definitely  better  played  on 
paper.  Trying  to  pick  the  words  out  of  a  maze  on  the  monitor  will  have 
you  seeing  dancing  green  ants  in  no  time. 

The  documentation  explains  Spelbound’ s  workings  in  clearly  under¬ 
standable  terms,  making  it  an  easy  package  for  the  novice  to  use.  It's 
one  of  the  few  around  that  provide  computer  experience  for  small  chil¬ 
dren  and  that  can  be  easily  modified.  It  is,  perhaps,  in  a  category  by 

itself.  _  KTJ 

Spelbound,  by  David  and  Jo  Ellen  Cawlfield,  Blythe  Valley  Software  (40879 
Highway  41,  Silver  Creek  Center,  Oakhurst,  CA  93644;  209-683-4735).  $79, 95, 

Word  Processing  on  the  IBM 

Peter  McWilliams  has  given  new  meaning  to  the  term  cottage  industry. 
Since  he  wrote  and  self-published  The  Word  Processing  Book  in  1982, 
McWilliams  has  become  the  most  successful  and  the  best-known  au¬ 
thor  of  computer  books  for  people  who  know  nothing  about  comput¬ 
ers,  And  that's  still  a  lot  of  people.  He  followed  up  that  same  year  with 
The  Personal  Computer  Book.  This  year  saw  the  publication  of  The 
Personal  Computer  in  Business  Book f  and  now  there  is  Word  Process¬ 
ing  on  the 

McWilliams  has  succeeded  for  several  reasons.  Most  important,  he 
takes  what  many  people  perceive  as  an  imposing  subject  and  presents  it 
in  a  light,  easy-to-follow,  if  innocuous  style.  His  books  are  peppered 
with  quaint  illustrations  (drawn  from  the  late  nineteenth  and  early 
twentieth  centuries)  and  humorous  anecdotes.  Since  McWilliams's  in¬ 
tended  audience  consists  almost  exclusively  of  those  who  have  not 
bought  a  computer  and  aren't  exactly  sure  why  they  should,  this  sugar- 
coated  approach  makes  for  a  painless  introduction  to  subjects  like 
RAM  and  ROM. 

In  addition,  McWilliams  is  an  astute  self-promoter.  He  is  his  own 
publisher  (although  he  has  admitted  that  he  hopes  to  sell  his  company 


154 


SGfttllk 


soon)  and  has  not  limited  himself  to  releasing  a  new  edition  of  one  of 
his  books  each  month.  There  is  also  The  McWilliams  Letter ,  an  infor¬ 
mal,  "highly  opinionated/'  ten-times-a-year  newsletter,  and  a  column 
in  Playboy  on  personal  computing.  So  what  does  the  man  whom  the 
Houston  Post  dubbed  "The  Dr.  Spock  of  Personal  Computers"  have  to 
say  about  IBM  and  the  pc? 

Not  a  heck  of  a  lot. 

Word  Processing  on  the  IBM  bears  more  than  a  passing  resemblance 
to  its  older  sister  The  Word  Processing  Book .  They  are  almost  identical 
in  content  until  you  reach  Part  III:  "Purchasing  an  IBM  System  and 
IBM  Software."  Both  books  begin  with  a  brief  description  of  the  origins 
of  word  processing  and  some  information  about  personal  computers  in 
general.  Chapter  3  is  a  concise  description  of  some  common  word  proc¬ 
essing  features,  and  Chapter  4,  "The  Curse  of  Noah  Webster,"  is  essen¬ 
tially  a  heartfelt  plug  for  The  Word  and  The  Word  Plus  from  Oasis 
Software.  None  of  this,  however,  is  discussed  in  terms  specific  to  using 
an  IBM  or  IBM-compatible  machine. 

Part  II  finds  McWilliams  padding  things  a  bit  more.  Again,  this  ma¬ 
terial  is  identical  to  that  in  The  Word  Processing  Book.  Each  chapter  in 
this  section  examines  the  value  of  word  processing  to  particular  people. 
Office  workers  are  told  about  form  letters.  Students  are  given  some 
questionable  advice  about  processing  their  lecture  notes  and  creating 
theme  papers  from  the  same.  Writers  are  informed  that  computers  are 
quieter  than  typewriters  (although  the  pc  is  hardly  the  best  computer 
for  making  this  point).  The  self-employed  are  advised  to  send  personal¬ 
ized  letters  to  their  clientele  advising  them  of  new  products.  Also,  there 
is  a  cheerfully  superfluous  chapter  on  writing  poetry  with  a  personal 
computer.  But  nary  a  mention  of  IBM. 

At  last,  in  Chapter  12,  "The  IBM  Personal  Computers,"  we  find 
descriptions  of  the  pc  and  XT  Of  course,  the  descriptions  are  almost 
identical  to  those  in  the  buying  guide  that  appears  in  the  back  of 
McWilliam's  other  books.  The  major  difference  is  that  some  gaffes  in 
the  description  of  the  XT,  which  McWilliams  originally  dismissed  as  a 
"color  version  of  the  pc,"  have  been  edited  out.  There  is  also  an  added 
discussion  of  various  operating  systems  and  a  brief  review  of  the  IBM 
Displaywriter,  a  standalone  word  processor  that  IBM  product  centers 
have  been  trying  to  sell  to  anyone  who  calls  to  inquire  about  using  the 
pc  for  word  processing  (McWilliams  hates  it). 

The  only  new  section  of  the  book — a  guide  to  word  proc¬ 
essing  software  for  the  pc — is  the  big  disappointment.  McWilliams 
writes  that  he  originally  intended  to  review  each  piece  of  software  indi¬ 
vidually.  After  his  list  of  software  packages  topped  fifty,  he  decided  to 
opt  instead  for  a  lengthy  checklist  that  would  outline  the  specific  fea¬ 
tures  of  each  package.  The  charts  that  resulted  are  not  entirely  useless, 
but  they  are  probably  not  going  to  familiarize  a  word  processing  novice 
with  the  real  nature  of  the  most  popular  programs  for  the  pc. 

As  it  is,  the  only  way  a  reader  can  compare,  say,  Volkswriter  and 
WordStar  is  in  terms  of  things  like  their  search  and  replace  functions. 
More  subjective  issues  like  ease  of  use  or  helpfulness  of  menus  are  ig¬ 
nored.  While  McWilliams  might  claim  he  was  trying  to  avoid  claims  of 
partisanship,  that  claim  wouldn't  jibe  with  the  plethora  of  opinions 
about  the  relative  merits  of  different  products  that  characterize  all  his 
books.  After  all,  he  makes  no  bones  about  not  liking  the  pc  itself, 
which  he  finds  too  noisy. 

The  reader  is  left  wondering  why  McWilliams  published  his  book  in 
the  first  place.  The  material  is  almost  entirely  the  same  as  that  in  his 
previous  book.  He  doesn't  even  like  the  pc,  and  he  provides  little  infor¬ 
mation  about  it  that  wasn't  in  the  earlier  book.  The  answer,  of  course, 
is  that  the  Dr.  Spock  of  Personal  Computers  expects  a  little  of  the  IBM 
marketing  magic  to  rub  off  on  him.  At  this  rate,  we  will  soon  be  seeing 
a  retitled  version  of  the  same  book  with  a  couple  of  pages  added  about 
IBM's  newest  entry — Word  Processing  on  the  PCjr.  JB 

Word  Processing  on  the  IBM ,  by  Peter  A.  McWilliams,  Prelude  Press  (Box 
69773,  Los  Angeles,  CA  90069).  $9.95. 


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6  Requires  TWO  Disk 
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IBM  PC  is  a  trademark  of  International  Business  Machines  Apple  trademark  of 
Apple  Computers  Inc. 

Dow  Jones  News  Retrieval  and  Market  Manager  are  a  registered  trademark  ot  Dow 
Jones  A  Co.,  Inc. 


for  the  IBM.  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


255 


The  good 
freres  Bob  and 
Doug  McKenzie  aren't 
any  funnier  than  have  been 
Softalk/IBM's  attempts  to 
find  a  way  to  send  free  trial 
subscriptions  into  Canada. 
After  stops  and  starts,  valiant 
attempts,  and  pitiable  efforts  to 
find  an  inexpensive  way  to  make 
Canadians  the  same  offer  we  make  U.S.  subscribers,  we've  finally 
faced  the  inevitable.  There  is  no  inexpensive  way. 

Armed  with  that  knowledge,  we're  following  a  hallowed  Softalk / 
IBM  tradition  and  ignoring  it.  Therefore: 

Effective  with  the  Januaiy  issue 

Softalk  will  finally  do  what  it  should  have  done  months  ago.  .  .  make 
free  trial  subscriptions  available  to  Canadian  IBM  owners.  Jot  your 
IBM  serial  number  down  and  send  it,  along  with  your  name  and 
mailing  address,  to: 

Canadian  Subs 
Softalk/IBM 


Box  60,  Dept.  A 

North  Hollywood,  CA  91603 


IBM  is  a  trademark  of 
International  Business  Machines 


l/uiess  otherwise  indicated,  software  listed  runs  in  DOS  on  machines 
with  either  display  adapter  and  requires  64K  and  at  least  one  disk  drive < 

A  Send  Bounty  Bob  climbing  through  ten  screens  of  a  uranium  mine  in 
Miner  2049ert  the  popular  arcade  game  from  Micro  Fun  (2699  Skokie 
Valley  Road,  Highland  Park,  IL  60035;  312-433-7550),  now  available 
for  the  pc.  In  the  game  you  run,  jump,  climb,  and  slide  through  the 
mines,  reinforcing  the  groundwork  as  you  go.  Elevators,  cannons, 
chutes,  and  ladders  will  help  you  but,  watch  out,  the  mutants  won't. 
Requires  joystick  and  color  /graphics  adapter.  §39,95. 

A  Flypchart  is  a  self-paced  teaching  and  demonstration  program  pre¬ 
sented  through  flipchart-style  screens.  From  Systems  Pius  (1120  San 
Antonio  Road,  Palo  Alto,  CA  94303;  415-969-7047).  The  package  pro¬ 
vides  the  ability  to  tailor  a  series  of  screens  to  your  requirements.  Pres¬ 
entations  can  take  several  forms:  interactive  training,  self-paced  dem¬ 
onstration,  and  automatic  demonstration.  §175, 

A  Published  as  a  permanent  reference  manual  in  progress,  the  first  issue 
of  d Notes,  the  International  Journal  for  Microcomputer  dBase  II  Data¬ 
base  Software  Users,  has  been  released  by  I.D.E.A  Industries  (1580 
Woodvale  Avenue,  Deerfield,  IL  60015;  312-940-1010)  *  Editorial  areas 
of  the  publication  include  database  management,  applications,  forms 
design,  reviews,  and  user  groups.  §44  per  year 

A  Carry  ordinary  paper  through  your  tractor-fed  printer  with  Paper 
Tractor ,  a  flat  plastic  device  shaped  like  printer  paper  that  carries  a 
sheet  of  nonperforated  paper  through  a  printer.  From  Paper  Tractor 
Limited  (One  South  Fairview,  Goleta,  CA  93117;  805-683-2851). 
511.95, 

A  A  real  estate  program  called  Real  Analyzer  allows  you  to  decide 
when  to  buy,  sell,  exchange,  or  refinance  any  property  by  proiecting 
cash  flow  and  profitability  before  and  after  taxes  for  five  years.  From 
Real-Comp  (Box  1263,  Cupertino,  CA  95015;  408-996-1160).  Can  be 
used  by  investors,  homeowners,  and  tenants  without  computer  experi¬ 
ence.  $195, 

A  Forte  Data  Systems  (1500  Norman  Avenue,  Santa  Clara,  CA  95050; 
408-980-1750)  has  announced  PC78-2,  a  hardware  and  software  pack¬ 
age  that  allows  the  pc  or  XT  to  communicate  via  coaxial  connection 
with  an  IBM  mainframe  by  emulating  an  IBM  3278/3 279  terminal. 
Product  gives  file  transferability  under  IBM  VS/TSO  or  VS/ CMS.  Up¬ 
grades  and  enhancements  are  made  by  swapping  disks.  51,395. 

A  Directed  at  the  business  person  who  has  a  pc  but  doesn't  really  know 
how  to  use  it,  a  three-disk  tutorial  is  available  from  Knoware  (301  Vas- 
sar  Street,  Cambridge,  MA  02139;  617-576-3821).  Using  a  simple  game 
format,  one  can  learn  the  basics  of  six  business  applications,  from  sim¬ 
ple  graphics  to  financial  decision  making.  §95. 

A  An  integrated  set  of  office  automation  software  has  been  released  by 
Schuchardt  Software  Systems  (515  Northgate  Drive,  San  Rafael,  CA 
94903;  415-492-9330),  The  InteSoft  Series  is  made  up  of  seven  modules, 
including  InteCalc r  InteWord,  InteBase,  IntePert ,  and  IntePlan.  Each 
module  can  work  alone,  or  the  InteVate  module  can  be  used  to  link 
them  together.  Database  package  includes  the  integrator.  From  §149  to 
§495  per  module. 

A  The  Practical  Accountant  is  a  sing  Gentry  accounting  package  that 


addresses  the  daily  routine  of  accounting  for  the  small  business*  From 
Softlink  (3255-2  Scott  Boulevard,  Santa  Clara,  CA  95051;  408-988- 
8011).  The  package  handles  receipts,  deposits,  credit  cards,  accounts 
payable,  and  so  on.  Also  prints  checks  with  vouchers,  $149* 

A  The  first  module  in  a  proposed  Investor  Series  is  available  from  Sa¬ 
vant  (Box  440278,  Houston,  TX  77244;  713-556-8363).  The  Technical 
Investor  contains  all  the  standard  technical  analysis  tools,  including 
three  kinds  of  moving  averages,  five  kinds  of  volume  indicators,  regres¬ 
sions,  point  and  figure  charts,  and  more*  Package  can  display  up  to 
four  chart  windows  at  once,  each  independently  controlled.  $395, 

A  An  enhanced  version  of  the  MicroFCS  decision  support  system  has 
been  released  by  Evaluation  and  Planning  Systems  (One  Industrial 
Drive,  Windham,  NH  03087;  603-898-1300).  New  edition  includes  a 
full-screen  data  editor,  user-defined  functions  and  commands,  and 
user-programmable  function  keys*  $2,000, 

A  Tall  Tree  Systems  (1032  El  well  Court,  Palo  Alto,  CA  94303;  415-964- 
1980)  has  announced  the  release  of  f Spool  the  DOS  2.2  sequel  to  its 
original  DOS  1,1  print  spooler.  Delivered  with  source  code  for  the  driv¬ 
ers.  $40. 

A  A  two-dimensional,  computer-aided  design  system  called  Draft- Aide 
Is  applicable  to  several  design  functions — with  appropriate  symbols 
and  characters— including  electrical,  piping,  mechanical,  structural, 
and  architectural.  From  United  Networking  Systems  (7007  Gulf  Free¬ 
way,  Houston,  TX  77087;  800-344-2001).  The  software  is  a  production¬ 
mode  system  and  is  therefore  very  fast*  Can  interface  with  the  pc  and 
the  XT.  $595. 

A  Two  training  tutorials  for  pc  users  have  been  released  by  Cdex  (5050 
El  Camino  Real,  Los  Altos,  CA  94022;  415-964-7600),  How  To  Use 
Your  IBM  PC  with  PC  DOS  and  HowTo  Use  Your  IBM  PC  with  CP/ 
M-86  and  Concurrent  CP/M-86  include  four  disks  of  interactive  in¬ 
struction  and  a  reference  guide  of  important  keystrokes  and  operating 
system  commands.  PC-DOS  tutorial  compatible  with  DOS  2.0. 
$69.95. 

A  Great  SnakesJ  Serpentine  is  an  adventurous  arcade  game  for  the  en¬ 
tire  family  from  Broderbund  Software  (17  Paul  Drive,  San  Rafael ,  CA 
94903;  415-479-1170).  In  a  maze  of  corridors,  you  are  chased  by  three 
vicious  serpents  through  twenty  different  maze  configurations.  Goal  is 
to  dwindle  down  the  enemy  by  snapping  at  their  tails  and  gobbling  up 
random  toads  and  snake  eggs  for  extra  points.  Requires  color /graphics 
adapter*  S34.95. 

A  A  conference  to  explore  a  broad  spectrum  of  communications  crea¬ 
tivity  and  leading-edge  technology  will  be  held  February  23  through 
26,  1984,  at  the  Monterey  Conference  Center  in  Monterey,  California. 
Sponsored  by  T.E.D.  Communications  (635  Westboume  Drive,  Los 
Angeles,  CA  90069;  213-354-6307),  the  four-day  event  will  feature  vis¬ 
ual  and  audio  presentations  by  speakers  from  Lucasfilm,  IBM,  NBC, 
MITr  Polaroid,  and  Sony  as  well  as  by  musician  Herbie  Hancock  and 
special  effects  filmmaker  Robert  Abel.  $475  per  person. 

A  For  creating  your  own  custom  programs,  Savvy  PC  is  a  database 
management  system  integrated  into  a  high-level  programming  lan¬ 
guage  and  operating  system.  From  Excalibur  Technologies  (300  Rio 
Grande  Boulevard  N.W.,  21  Mercado,  Albuquerque,  NM  87104;  505- 


SOftnlk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


25? 


242-3333).  The  package  can  be  used  in  a  wide  variety  of  applications, 
from  medical  analysis  to  agricultural  accounting.  Users  can  create  ap¬ 
plications,  modify  commands,  and  continually  update  the  format. 
$395. 

A  Nine  models  of  5-1/4-inch  Winchester  disk  drives,  providing  10, 6r 
15.9,  and  25. 1M  of  formatted  storage,  are  available  from  12  Interface 
(7630  Alabama  Avenue,  Canoga  Park,  CA  91304;  213-341-7914).  Each 
disk  system  includes  the  drive,  an  IBM-compatible  controller  (if  re¬ 
quired),  cabinet,  cable,  power  supply,  connector,  and 
I/O  adapter.  DOS  2.0-compatible.  From  $1,185  to  $1,985. 

A  Run  one  or  more  applications  at  the  same  time  on  the  XT  with  Thor- 
oughbred/OS ,  a  fast,  multiuser  operating  system  from  Science  Man¬ 
agement  {1011  Route  22,  Bridgewater,  NJ  08807;  201-685-9000). 
Software  for  the  system  includes  Thoroughbred  Basic,  an  enhanced 
version  of  Business  Basic  III  and  Thoroughbred  Idol,  a  database  man¬ 
ager  and  applications  development  took  A  full  range  of  business  appli¬ 
cations  software  also  is  available,  from  general  ledger  to  payroll.  $795. 
System  modules:  $395  to  $595. 

A  Analytic  Information  Processing  (Box  966,  Danville,  CA  94526;  415- 
837-2803)  announces  an  expansion  card  cooling  fan  called  PCool.  The 
drop  in  temperature  inside  the  pc  with  the  fan  installed  is  fifteen  degrees 
Fahrenheit.  Mounts  on  the  front  of  the  chassis  under  the  pc  cover.  Kit 
with  instructions:  $99, 

A  A  fifteen-minute  continuous  artistic  experience  is  available  on  disk 
from  PC  Art  (3101  Oak  Street,  Terre  Haute,  IN  47803).  In  addition,  the 
program  teaches  the  use  of  the  circle ,  draw,  line ,  and  point  commands 
and  includes  a  demonstration  of  two  palettes  on  each  of  nine  color 
backgrounds.  $50. 

A  Release  2,06  of  PC/ Coder,  a  program  development  system,  has  been 
announced  by  Response  (608  Second  Street,  Jackson,  MN  56143).  New 
version  includes  a  25  percent  faster  program  generation  routine  and  the 
addition  of  subroutines  for  nongenerated  code.  $450, 


THE  CALCULATOR  PROGRAM  WITH  A  MEW  TWIST  -  CONCURRENCY! 


Tenkey  is  a  calculator  program  which  is  totally  integrated  directly  inside 
your  computer.  Ten  key’s  concurrency  allows  you  to  be  running  ANY 
application  desired,  press  a  special  command  key  and  instantly  your 
computer  becomes  a  calculator.  When  you've  finished  your  calcula¬ 
tions,  press  the  command  key  again,  and  your  applications  continues, 
as  if  it  had  never  been  interrupted.  You  may  even  transport  the  final 
calculator  total  back  into  your  application.  Finally,  a  practical  use  of 
concurrency. 


FEATURES 

15  Digits  -  up  to  S9  trillion 
Tape  display  for  double 
checking 

All  Decimal  Precisions 
Kon  .scant 

Ability  to  transport  final 
totals  back  to  original 
application. 


BENEFITS 

Saves  time  by  allowing  instant 
calculator  capabilities  at  the 
touch  of  a  finger. 

Saves  money  by  improving 
your  operators  through-put 
efficiency. 

Maximizes  your  personal 
computer  investment  by 
optimizing  its  capabilities, 


Ask  your  local  IBM  or  Compatibles 
Dealer  for  a  demonstration  today! 
If  he  doesn’t  have  Ten  key, 

Tell  him  to  get  Tenkey! 


Cheaper  than  PAC-MAN 
and  H)  limes  more  useful! 


PHOTON  SOFTWARE 
P.O  BOX  14CB 
BELLEVUE.  WA  at£t» 
rOT|J51-M72 
fitKJM2ft-2975 

AT  COMPUTER  STORES 
EVERYWHERE 


A  A  mouse-driven  software  package  that  aJJows  pc  users  to  access  sev¬ 
eral  applications  through  windows  and  exchange  data  among  them  is 
available  from  Graphkon  Software  (399  Sherman  Avenue,  Palo  Alto, 
CA  94306;  415-329-1791).  Inview  works  with  almost  any  package  writ¬ 
ten  for  DOS  IT  and  2,0,  including  1-2-3 ,  WordStar ,  and  dBase  IL  Op¬ 
erates  with  both  floppy  and  hard  disk  systems  and  monochrome 
monitor.  Requires  256K.  $295. 

A  A  set  of  five  games  including  horse  racing  and  target  shooting  is 
available  from  The  Eton  Group  (160  Keller  Street,  Petaluma,  CA 
94952;  800-358-9092),  The  Entertainment  Set  package  is  menu-driven 
and  easy  to  learn,  £29.95. 

A  The  Software  Shop  Construction  System  is  a  package  designed  for 
construction  firms  buying  their  first  pcs.  From  Software  Shop  Systems 
(960  Holmdel  Road,  Holmdel,  NJ  07733;  201-946-8900) .  The  system  is 
designed  to  follow  a  company's  typical  work  flow  and  uses  function 
keys,  window  displays,  and  answer  wheel  to  make  it  easy  to  use.  How¬ 
to  cassette  tape  included. 

A  A  combination  I/O  card  that  Hts  in  any  slot  in  the  pc  and  the  short 
slot  in  the  XT  is  available  from  IDEAssociates  (7  Oak  Park  Drive,  Bed¬ 
ford,  MA  01730;  617-275-4430).  The  IDEAmini  multifunction  card 
contains  disk  emulation  software,  print  spooler  software,  and  Lptl  / 
Lpt2  swap  program.  Interface  and  clock /calendar  options  available. 
$175  to  $295. 

A  The  Data  Communications  Source  Book  has  been  announced  by  In¬ 
formation  Systems  Strategy  (21515  Hawthorne  Boulevard,  Torrance, 
CA  90503;  213-543-5565).  The  service  consists  of  a  loose-leaf  reference 
book  covering  the  entire  spectrum  of  data  communications  and  quar¬ 
terly  updates.  Topics  covered  include  local  area  networks,  PABX  sys¬ 
tems,  communication  protocols,  and  so  on.  Can  be  used  as  a  personal 
or  technical  reference.  First  year;  $195. 

A  A  fully  featured  portable  printer  has  been  announced  by  Micro  Pe¬ 
ripherals  (4426  South  Century  Drive,  Salt  Lake  City,  UT  84107;  800- 
821-8848),  The  eighty-column  dot-matrix  Sprinter  features  an 
IBM-compatible  parallel  port,  five  character  sets,  programmable  char¬ 
acter  design,  built-in  friction  and  tractor  feed. 

A  EasyMed  is  a  complete  medical  practice  management  software  pack¬ 
age  from  Medical  Accounts  Management  Services  {95  Madison  Ave¬ 
nue,  Morristown,  NJ  07960;  201-539-3833).  Standard  features  include 
complete  patient  billing,  insurance  claim  generation,  management  re¬ 
ports  for  practice  analysis,  word  processing,  appointment  scheduling, 
and  a  customizing  function  for  tailoring  the  system.  Maintains  up  to 
32,000  patient  records  and  prints  statements  automatically.  $2,495. 

A  Easy  to  learn  and  use,  ResQ  is  a  database  program  that  can  handle 
32,767  records  per  file.  From  Key  Software  (2350  East  Devon  Avenue, 
Des  Plains,  IL  60018;  312-298-3610),  The  system  offers  sixty  fields  per 
record  and  eighty  characters  per  field.  No  programming  knowledge  is 
needed;  just  answer  prompts  to  create  custom  free-form  displays,  re¬ 
ports,  and  calculations.  Can  transfer  ASCI!  files  from  other  database 
management  systems  and  word  processors.  $395. 

A  A  new  series  of  hard-disk  systems  in  their  own  cases  has  been  an¬ 
nounced  by  Falcon  Technology  (6644  South  196th  Street,  Kent,  WA 
98032;  206-251-8282).  In  addition  to  providing  either  10  or  15M  of 
mass  storage,  the  PC  eXTender  series  includes  a  serial  port,  cluck/cal¬ 
endar,  sockets  for  as  much  as  192K  additional  RAM,  and  utility  soft¬ 
ware.  Occupies  only  one  system  expansion  slot,  $2,295  to  $2,795. 
Second  1GM  drive  can  be  added  for  $1,595. 

A  Instantly  calculate,  carry  over,  and  display  tax  results  with  Series 
1040  income  tax  software  from  Calcu-Tax  Computer  Software  (19-21 
West  Mount  Pleasant  Avenue,  Livingston,  NJ  07039;  201-992-2274). 
The  program  can  process  both  simple  and  complex  returns  because  it 
contains  all  lettered  schedules  and  twenty  numbered  forms,  ten  with 
multiple  form  capabilities.  Display  screens  are  reproductions  of  the 
1040  forms,  $1,150. 

A  Data  Consulting  Group  (877  Bounty  Drive,  Foster  City,  CA  94404; 


258 


SQftolk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


$1495  for  a  complete  10  megabyte  hard 
disk  system  is  a  good  deal  —  but  not  if 
you  need  23  megabytes  of  storage! 

That's  why  our  23  megabyte  hard  disk  system  is  priced  at  only 
$2249.  And  for  another  $895,  you'll  get  23  megabytes  of  tape 

backup  security. 


The  Pegasus  10  and  23  come  complete  with 
all  the  software  and  hardware  you  need  to 
start  operations. 

If  you've  outgrown  the  storage  capabilities  of  your  IBM 
PC  or  compatible  computer  but  haven't  grown  into  the 
giant  pricetags  on  10-  or  23-megabyte  hard  disk  systems, 
you're  in  for  a  surprise. 

The  price  on  these  complete  systems  featuring  the  lat¬ 
est  components  just  reached  an  all  time  low! 

And  you  get  everything  you  need  to  start  working  on 
your  hard  disk  system: 

■  Top  quality  formatted  fixed  hard  disk  (ST506 
compatible) 

■  Top  quality  controller  card 

■  Software  that  runs  on  DOS  1 . 1  and  2.0,  CP/M  86 

■  Host  adapter 

■  Integral  power  supply 

■  Cables 

■  External  custom  chassis  with  additional  space  for 
either  our  tape  backup,  another  hard  disk,  or  floppy 
disk  drive. 

■  90  day  warranty 

What's  the  catch? 

There  is  none.  It's  a  simple  matter  of  economics. 
Pegasus  saw  the  growing  need  for  mass  storage,  made  a 
commitment  to  fill  this  need,  purchased  thousands  of  the 
finest  quality  hard  disks,  and  is  now  passing  the  good 
deal  along  to  you. 

The  only  thing  you  may  be  missing  in  buying  the 
Pegasus  instead  of  the  IBM  XT  expansion  chassis  is 


something  you  may  not  need  in  the  first  place:  eight  ex¬ 
pansion  slots,  a  communications  card,  three  little  ini¬ 
tials,  and  an  extra  $1,000  to  $2,000  out  of  your  pocket. 

But  don't  I  need  a  tape  backup  for  all  that 
storage? 

We  recommend  it!  That's  why  we're  offering  you  the 
same  great  deal  on  a  ^"cartridge  tape  backup.  We've 
watched  other  companies  offer  10  and  20  megabytes  of 
storage  and  forget  about  the  backup  altogether.  Our 
tape  backup,  which  carries  a  90  day  warranty,  retails  for 
just  $895  —  a  small  price  for  over  23  megabytes  of  for¬ 
matted  storage  and  lots  of  peace  of  mind. 

Where  can  I  buy  a  Pegasus  hard  disk 
system? 

Pegasus  systems  are  available  only  through  dealers. 
So  contact  the  dealer  in  your  area  who  sells  IBM  PC  or 
compatible  computers.  If  he  doesn't  have  Pegasus, 
chances  are  he'll  carry  it  soon.  Just  ask  him  to  call  us.  We 
will  ship  him  your  Pegasus  unit  immediately. 

Does  Pegasus  have  larger  storage 
systems? 

Absolutely.  65  and  140  megabyte  systems  will  soon  be 
available  from  Pegasus.  And  the  best  part  is  that  they, 
too,  are  breaking  new  ground  when  it  comes  to  pricing. 

If  you've  outgrown  10,  or  even  23  megabytes  of  storage, 
ask  about  the  larger  capacity  units.  All  with  the  same 
top  quality  hardware  and  software  and  full  90  day 
warranty. 


PEGASUS 

A  DIVISION  OF 

GREAT  LAKES 

COMPUTER  PERIPHERALS,  INC. 

2200  West  Higgins  Road,  Suite  245 
Hoffman  Estates,  Illinois  60195 


Dealer  Inquiries  Invited  800-323-6836  In  Illinois  (312)  884-7272 


415-571-8100)  has  announced  PC  Cash  Register ;  a  point-of-sale  pro¬ 
gram  that  provides  inventory  record  storage  by  store  number,  inter- 
store  transfer,  three  types  of  inventory  markdown,  and  automatic 
percentage  discount.  $395.  Integrated  purchase  order  control  system: 
$100.  Mailing  list  and  labels:  $75.  Automatic  cash  drawer:  $268.  A  PC 
Names  &  Notes  is  a  prospecting  tool  for  salespersons  or  a  follow-up 
utility  for  sales  support.  Can  have  up  to  ninety -nine  dated  text  records 
attached  to  any  name  and  address  record.  $95. 

A  Expanded  and  updated  six  times  a  year,  the  USMI:  Market  Directory 
is  a  guide  to  doing  business  with  software  producers.  From  Technique 
Learning  (40  Cedar  Street,  Dobbs  Ferry,  NY  10522;  914-693-8100).  The 
guide  profiles  computer  retailers,  distributors,  suppliers,  libraries,  and 
consultants  in  detail.  More  than  five  hundred  current  software  publish¬ 
ers  are  listed,  and  an  index  provides  six  ways  to  find  them.  One  year: 
$195. 

A  More  than  one  hundred  fifty  investment  software  descriptions  are 
listed  in  Computerized  Investing ,  a  bimonthly  publication  available 
from  the  American  Association  of  Individual  Investors  (612  North 
Michigan  Avenue,  Chicago,  IL  60611;  312-280-0170).  Offers  detailed 
descriptions  and  specifics  on  capabilities,  systems,  and  features,  as  well 
as  prices  and  addresses.  Subscription  includes  an  electronic  bulletin 
board  and  message  service.  $44  per  year. 

A  BPI  Systems  (3423  Guadalupe,  Austin,  TX  78705;  512-454-2801)  has 
announced  four  new  additions  to  its  family  of  software  for  the  XT: 
General  Accounting,  Accounts  Receivable,  and  Accounts  Payable  are 
three  accounting  systems  that  run  on  DOS  2.0  and  work  on  the  fixed 
disk.  New  features  include  subqueuing  of  reports  for  unattended  print¬ 
ing.  $595  per  module.  A  Information  Management  is  a  complete  data¬ 
base  management  system,  including  a  word  processor.  $425. 

A  Designed  for  large  businesses  or  small,  Oz  is  a  financial  management 


m  pc  ohxt- 


•  IBM  Compatiblaisduri 


IBM  Compatible  Sedcl-Pbri 

•  IBM  Compatible  Printiit_?a: 

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ntroductory  Price  Through  12-30-83f 

r^lude  boards  meet  the  highest  stan'ddrds  At 


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system  from  Fox  &  Geller  (604  Market  Street,  Elmwood  Park,  NJ 
07407;  201-794-8883).  With  no  cells  and  no  programming,  the  package 
offers  integrated  data  analysis,  graphics,  and  reports  that  give  office 
managers  financial  control  and  3-D  views  of  data.  Using  simple 
prompts  and  commands,  revenues  and  expenses  can  be  projected,  actu¬ 
als  and  forecasts  can  be  compared,  and  color  graphs  can  display  any 
information  on  the  screen.  Requires  color /graphics  adapter.  $500.  A 
Grafox  is  a  business  graphics  package  with  full-color  capabilities  that 
can  draw  information  from  any  standard  IBM  Basic  file.  Requires 
color /graphics  adapter.  $295. 

A  American  Planning  (4600  Duke  Street,  Alexandria,  VA  22304;  703- 
751-2574)  has  introduced  MegaBasic,  a  transportable  version  of  Basic 
that  functions  under  several  different  operating  systems,  requires  less 
memory,  sorts  faster  than  conventional  Basics,  and  more.  Thirty  built- 
in  features  include  scan  with  edit,  dynamic  number  conversion,  trace/ 
trace  if,  multiple  buffers,  and  expanded  arithmetic  functions.  Options 
require  software  license.  $375.  Development  interpreter  version:  $199. 
Demo:  $50.  A  The  B.O.S.S.  is  a  menu-driven  business  data  manage¬ 
ment  system  that  features  large  file  handling  and  portability  between 
operating  systems,  from  various  CP/Ms  to  MS-DOS.  Can  create  appli¬ 
cations  for  networking  systems  such  as  PCNet.  $495.  Development  Ba¬ 
sic:  $199. 

A  Cheat  Sheets  are  command  summary  cards  designed  to  perch  atop 
the  screen  and  jog  your  memory.  From  Printed  Peripherals  (747  Fifty- 
fourth  Street,  Oakland,  CA  94609;  415-653-7412).  There  are  vinyl 
cards  for  WordStar,  PC-DOS  dBase  II,  Perfect  Writer,  Multiplan,  1-2- 
3,  and  more.  All  are  easy  to  read  and  arranged  for  quick  visual  access. 
$9.95. 

A  A  word  processing  system  that  checks  and  corrects  your  spelling, 
WordPlus-PC  will  highlight  a  misspelled  word  and  offer  suggestions,  in 
probable  order  of  correctness,  as  to  how  to  spell  it,  all  with  the  stroke 
of  a  few  keys.  Make  your  choice  and  a  word  is  automatically  corrected. 
From  Professional  Software  (51  Fremont  Street,  Needham,  MA  02194; 
617-444-5224).  The  package  features  a  ninety-thousand-word  elec¬ 
tronic  dictionary  with  room  for  ten  thousand  more.  $495.  Without  The 
Boss :  $395. 

A  Hand-rubbed  computer  furniture  in  a  variety  of  woods  and  finishes, 
including  light  and  dark  oak  and  walnut,  is  made  by  Computer  Com¬ 
pliments  (Box  770843,  Houston,  TX  77215;  713-664-4897).  Modular 
construction  allows  for  configuration  growth.  Can  be  purchased  com¬ 
plete  or  piece  by  piece.  Locking  compartments;  centralized  power  bus 
with  circuit  breaker.  Enclosed  printer  cabinet  sold  separately.  Com¬ 
plete:  $895. 

A  Connect  your  pc  to  a  Honeywell  mainframe  with  two  emulation  soft¬ 
ware  packages  from  Cambridge  Computer  (151  Bender  Road,  Mount 
Carmel,  CT  06518;  203-288-6004).  Both  allow  the  pc  to  emulate  a  Ho¬ 
neywell  terminal  without  any  host  system  or  application  software  mo¬ 
dification,  regardless  of  the  operating  system.  File  transfer  utility  also 
available.  PC77/78  package  emulates  a  Honeywell  VIP7700  and 
VIP7800  series.  $795.  PC72/73  emulates  Honeywell  VIP7200  and 
VIP7300.  $395.  Transfer  utility:  $150. 

A  A  new  monthly  journal  for  1-2-3  users,  called  Absolute  Reference, 
has  been  published  by  Que  (7960  Castleway  Drive,  Indianapolis,  IN 
46250;  317-842-7162).  The  November  issue  contained  a  comparison  of 
VisiCalc  and  1-2-3,  a  review  of  Financial  Fastrax,  and  a  comparison  of 
three  plotters.  Future  issues  will  include  columns  on  1-2-3  features,  ex¬ 
amples  of  business  applications,  tips,  product  reviews,  and  more.  $60 
per  year. 

A  Data  Defender  is  a  digital  burglar  alarm  designed  by  Picotronics  (820 
East  Forty-seventh  Street,  Tucson,  A Z  85713;  602-624-8771).  A  pres¬ 
sure-sensitive  mat  connected  to  a  control  module  containing  two  100- 
decibel  horns  sits  under  your  pc.  Control  module  plugs  into  a  standard 
wall  outlet.  Manual  reset  key  enables  alarm  system  to  be  deactivated 
by  user.  Up  to  ten  mats  can  be  connected  to  one  module.  $32.  A 


260 


SOftcilk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


SIMPLIFIED  SPREADSHEET  ASSEMBLY 


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MADE  SIMPLE 

Now  you  can  save  time,  aggravation,  adhesive 
tape,  and  Gorgonzola  cheese  by  following  one 
simple  direction — Sideways.  It's  the  unique  soft¬ 
ware  program  that  lets  you  output  all  the  spread¬ 
sheet  columns  you  need,  all  on  one  continuous 
page,  all  with  one  print  command — and  all  for 
only  $60! 

With  Sideways  on  your  side,  no  spreadsheet 
you  invent  with  Lotus  1-2-3™  VisiCalc?  Multi¬ 
plan™  or  SuperCalc™  is  too  wide!  And  it's  just 
as  powerful  an  ally  when  you're  creating  far- 
into-the-future  schedules  and  pert  charts  with 
your  word  processor.  In  fact,  for  any  wide 
text  file,  for  dozens  of  uses,  the  way  to  go  is 
Sideways. 

The  experts  agree.  PC  Magazine,  for  exam¬ 
ple,  writes:  "If  you've  got  the  need,  Sideways  has 
the  solution."  And  PC  World  calls  Sideways 
"nifty  ....  an  easy  to  use  program  that  does 
what  it  claims." 

You  can  go  Sideways  today  with  an  IBM®  PC 
and  an  IBM®  Epson,  Okidata,  Prism™  or  Pro¬ 
writer™  printer.  Ask  for  Sideways  at  your  local 
ComputerLand®  or  other  leading  computer 
stores.  Or  mail  a  $60  check  to  Funk  Software, 
PO.  Box  1290,  Cambridge,  MA  02238.  (617) 
497-6339.  MC/Visa  accepted.  Send  no  Mexican 
jumping  beans,  please. 

SIDEWAYS 

FOR  EASY-READING  HARD  COPY 


Giving  Your  Hard  Disk  the  Boot 


by  Kevin  Goldstein 


Red  Face  Department.  The  November  in- 
stallment  of  "Boards  and  Buses"  asserted  that 
the  installable  device  driver  for  the  Pegasus 
hard  disk  was  supplied  by  Tallgrass  Systems. 
That  was  a  mistake.  It  should  have  said  the 
driver  and  its  hard-to-use  interface  were  sup¬ 
plied  by  Tall  Tree  Systems,  a  company  in  no 
way  related  to  Tallgrass  Technologies.  Tall- 
grass  was  one  of  the  first  companies  to  offer 
high- capacity  hard  disk  systems  with  integral 
tape  backup,  and  word  in  the  industry  is  that 
the  systems  are  excellent,  (Look  for  a  review  of 
one  of  Tallgrass  s  subsystems  in  an  upcoming 
issue. )  We  apologize  for  the  error. 


(CALCU-EMULATORl 

PRINTING  CALCULATOR 
EMULATOR  PROGRAM 
for  the 

IBM  -  PC  (and  PC-XT  Compatibles} 


Why  You  need  Caicu  Emulator 

BOTH  SCREEN  AND  PRINTOUT  ARE  MUCH 
MORE  READABLE  THAN  THOSE  TAPES  AND 
DISPLAYS  LIMITED  TO  fl  TO  14  (NUMERIC  ONLY) 
CHARACTERS. 

ANYWHERE  THERE'S  A  PC  YOU  HAVE  A  TOP 
QUALITY  CALCULATOR  AVAILABLE. 
AUTO-DECIMAL,  FIXED.  AND  FLOATING  DE¬ 
CIMAL  POSITION  FOR  ACCOUNTING  PLUS 
SCIENTIFIC  NOTATION  STYLE  FOR  SCIENCE 
AND  ENGINEERING 

EASY  TO  LEARN  TO  USE  SINCE  MOST 
FUNCTIONS  IMITATE  A  COMMON  OFFICE 
CALCULATOR, 

easily  make  remarks  on  your  calcul 

ATION  PRINTOUT  SO  YOU  KNOW  WHAT  YOU 
HAVE  DONE  TWO  HOURS,  TWO  DAYS,  OR  TWO 
YEARS  AFTER  YOU  HAVE  FILED  IT  AWAY  WITH 
ARCHIVAL  ACCOUNTING  or  scientific 
MATERIALS. 

NOT  COPY  PROTECTED!  I  ! 


Requires: 

IBM  Personal  Computer  (or  cpmpalibfe) 
IBM  PC  -  DOS  (any  version!  or  MS  -  DOS 
One  diskette  drive 

An  SO  column  momior  (color  or  mono) 
Optional  primer  lor  hard  copy 


SpeciaHyW°nly^24'9-  IS!  *“*" 

Designs  Compultf  pTOdiuTs 
7739  El  P'EN&Adufu  Dallas,  TX  7&24G 
Phone  (314)  9 60-24 5 5 

PROMPT  SHIPPING! 

J0M  PC  and  PC  ♦  005  a*e  natte marks  of  ititernaiionai 

Business  Machines  Carp 

MS  -  DOS  is  9  iratfenwk  of  Microsoft,  Inc, 


The  interface  between  a  hard 
disk  and  a  pc  consists  of  two 
parts:  a  controller  board 
and  a  host  interface  board. 
The  controller  board  per¬ 
forms  such  functions  as 
buffering  (amplifying)  weak 
disk  signals,  converting 
the  analog  signals  from  the  disk  into  digital  sig¬ 
nals.  and  assembling  the  bit  stream  into  bytes. 
There  is  a  standard  controller-to-computer 
interface,  adhered  to  by  many  5  hi -inch  hard¬ 
disk  controllers,  called  the  small  computer  sys¬ 
tem  interface,  or  SCSI  (the  name  was  recently 
changed  to  SCSI  from  SAS1).  The  popularity 
of  the  SCSI  interface  greatly  expedites  the  sys¬ 
tem  integrators'  task  of  interfacing  a  hard  disk 
to  various  small  computers:  All  they  need  to 
do  is  design  a  board  that  connects  the  standard 
SCSI  interface  to  the  desired  computer's  bus. 
That  board  usually  plugs  into  the  computer  to 
which  the  disk  will  be  attached  (called  the  host 
computer),  and  is  therefore  called  a  host 
adapter  board;  the  standard  SCSI  interface 
plug  is  then  plugged  into  the  host  adapter 
board  in  the  personal  computer. 

However,  SCSI  takes  the  concept  of  a  stan¬ 
dardized  interface  one  step  further  than  mere 
plug-compatibility  (that  is,  low-level  hardware 
and  electrical  compatibility),  because  it  also 
specifies  a  standard  software  interface.  Data 
transfers  across  an  SCSI  interface  occur  at  a 
very  high  level:  read  a  byte  or  read  a  sector,  for 
example,  are  typical  SCSI  commands.  Since  an 
SCSI  interface  does  most  of  the  work,  the  asso¬ 
ciated  device  drivers  can  be  very  simple. 

The  Great  Lakes  hard  disk  (see  the  last  two 
installments  of  this  column)  typifies  the  way 
most  external  hard  disks  are  interfaced  Lo  the 
pc.  A  controller  board  is  located  in  the  same 
box  as  the  external  disk.  One  side  of  the  con¬ 
troller  board  connects  to  the  disk  itself  (also 
through  a  standard  interface,  incidentally, 
called  an  ST-506  interface);  the  other  side  of 
the  controller  board  offers  a  standard  SCSI  in¬ 
terface  and  cable,  A  host  adapter  board  is 
plugged  into  the  pc  expansion  chassis,  and  the 
SCSI  interface  cable  from  the  controller  board 


is  plugged  into  the  host  adapter  board,  thus 
completing  the  electrical  connections. 

At  boot  time,  a  small  program  called  a  de¬ 
vice  driver  is  loaded  permanently  into  mem¬ 
ory.  Once  this  has  been  done,  programs  can 
read  and  write  data  to  the  hard  disk  simply  by 
passing  information  to  the  device  driver, 
which  does  the  actual  communication  over  the 
SCSI  interface. 

The  XT  disk  controller  does  not  conform  to 
the  SCSI  interface,  IBM  has  built  an  excellent 
controller  that  does  lots  of  error  checking  and 
has  other  nice  features;  it  does  not,  however, 
communicate  with  the  software  at  anywhere 
near  as  high  a  level  as  a  standard  SCSI  inter¬ 
face.  From  an  outside  vendor's  point  of  view, 
that  makes  the  attainment  of  100  percent  XT 
compatibility  much  more  difficult  than  it 
would  have  been  had  IBM  used  the  SCSI  inter¬ 
face,  Vendors  must  design  their  own  control¬ 
lers,  and  those  controllers  must  exactly  mimic 
IBM's.  (A  rather  expensive  way  around  that 
problem  would  be  for  the;  manufacturer  to 
simply  specify  the  use  of  the  IBM  controller 
card.) 

As  this  column  observed  once  before,  one 
of  the  disadvantages  of  an  external  hard  disk 
vis-a-vis  the  XT  is  that  a  pc  with  an  external 
hard  disk  will  always  have  to  be  booted  off  a 
floppy  disk  in  the  A  drive.  The  reason  for  this 
annoyance  can  be  found  in  the  pc’s  ROM 
*4rmware.  In  addition  to  containing  diagnostic 
routines,  functions,  and  services  that  can  be 
called  by  user  programs,  the  ROM  programs 
(collectively  known  as  the  ROM  BIOS,  for 
ROM  Basic  Input/Output  Services)  also  com 
tain  the  boot  code.  The  boot  code  Is  nothing 
more  than  a  short  program  that  reads  a  small 
section  of  "startup"  code,  called  the  boot  re¬ 
cord  from  any  system  disk.  Once  read  into 
memory,  the  BIOS  passes  control  to  the  boot 
record;  the  boot  record  then  reads  the  rest  of 
the  disk  operating  system  into  memory. 

One  of  the  differences  between  a  pc  and  an 
XT  is  that  the  XT's  ROM  contains  code  that 
can  read  the  boot  record  off  either  a  floppy 
disk  or  the  hard  disk;  if  the  XT's  firmware  de¬ 
termines  that  there  is  no  disk  in  drive  A,  it  au- 


262 


5 Oft olk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


Meet  Lee  McFadden,  your 
personal  guide 

to  the  IBM  PC 


Lee’s  carefully  sequenced  cassette  lessons 
let  you  learn  in  the  most  natural  way 
possible— by  sitting  down  with  a 
knowledgeable  friend.  Even  if  you  have 
never  touched  a  computer,  in  just  3  step- 
by-step  sessions  you  will  learn  to: 

•  Set  up  your  computer 

and  use  the  special  keys 

•  Copy  diskettes  and  files 

•  Format  new  diskettes 

•  Rename  and  erase  files 

•  Load  and  run  BASIC  programs 

•  Write  simple  BASIC  programs 

•  Create  and  edit  text  files 

•  Set  up  batch  processing  files 

•  And  much  more! 

In  short,  you  will  be  able  to  use  existing 
programs  with  confidence,  as  you  enter 
your  own  data  organize  your  files  and 
understand  the  principles  of  what  you  and 
your  computer  can  do.  If  you  later  decide  to 
take  up  programming,  you’ll  have  the  solid 
background  necessary. 

A  Proven  Teaching  Approach 

With  interactive  FlipTrack  cassettes,  you 
learn  directly  by  doing.  No  reading 
required.  You  learn  at  your  own 
convenience,  at  your  own  pace,  on  your 
own  computer— like  having  a  personal 
tutor  “talk  you  through’’  each  procedure. 

Best  of  all.  the  patented  FlipTrack  format 
of  the  tapes  lets  you  choose  the  subjects 
that  interest  you,  covering  as  much  or  as 
little  detail  as  you  want.  And  a  fully 
indexed  Operator’s  Guide  provides  an 
invaluable,  on-going  reference. 

You  work  directly  with  IBM’s  own  DOS 
and  Diagnostics  diskettes,  trying  the 


IBM  is  a  registered 
trademark  of 
International 
Business  Machines 
Corp. 


commands  and  programs  you  want  to 
master,  and  seeing  the  results.  No 
secondhand  simulations.  (If  you  have  PC 
DOS  version  2.0,  you  also  work  with  its 
Supplemental  Programs  diskette.) 

Moneyback  Guarantee 

Order  from  us  on  a  15-day  “right  of 
return"  basis.  Try  a  lesson  or  two  yourself. 
Share  them  with  others— friends,  family, 
students  or  staff,  if  you’re  not  delighted  at 
how  quickly  and  easily  you  begin  to  learn, 
simply  return  the  program  in  its  original 
condition  for  a  full  refund.  No  questions 
asked. 

To  Order: 

Drop  by  your  local  dealer  for  a 
demonstration.  Fill  out  the  coupon  below, 
and  mail  it.  Or  Visa  and  MasterCard 
holders  may  order  TOLL  FREE: 

(800)  222-FLIP 

In  Illinois,  call  (312)  790-1117. 


Other  tested 
“how  to”  courses 
from  FlipTrack: 

Computer  Operation 

□  Apple  //e . 

□  Apple  II  Plus . 

□  Apple  /// . 

□  IBM  PC . 

$57.00 

$57.00 

.$110.00 

$57.00 

$75.00 

$57.00 

*7  □  IBM  XT . 

i  □  Franklin  Ace  1000 

Word  Processing 

□  WordStar . 

□  WordStar  & 

MailMerge . 

□  AppleWriter . 

□  EasyWriter  II . 

$57.00 

$75.00 

$57.00 

$57.00 

Spreadsheets 

□  VisiCalc . . 

□  SuperCalc . 

□  Multiplan . 

□  Lotus  1-2-3  ....... 

$75.00 

$75.00 

$75.00 

$75.00 

Operating  Systems 

□  CP/M . 

□  CP/M-86 . 

.  $60.00 
.  $75.00 

Introduction 

□  How  to  Choose  the 
Right  Computer 
&  Software . 

.  $29.95 

FlipTrack  Learning  Systems  acknowledges  (he 
trademarks  above  as  belonging  to  the 
companies  whose  products  they  describe. 

Learn  how  to  operate  your  IBM  PC 
by  listening  to  a  friend. 


□  YES.  Please  rush  me  the  courses  I’ve  checked  above.  I 
understand  that  if  I’m  not  delighted,  I  may  return  any  course 
undamaged  within  15  days  for  full  refund.  No  questions 
asked. 

□  Check  enclosed.  (Include  $2.50  for  shipping.  Illinois 
customers  add  5.5%  sales  tax.) 

□  Charge  my  credit  card: 

□  VISA  □  MasterCard 

No.  _  Expires _ 


Name 


Address 


.  State . 


Signature 


Outside  USA.  add  810  per  unit. 


FlipTrack 

Learning  Systems 


Dept.  ZZ-A 
999  Main.  Suite  200 
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(3121790-1117 


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tomatically  searches  for  a  boot  record  on  the 
hard  disk.  As  supplied  by  IBM,  a  pc's  ROM 
lacks  that  little  piece  of  code,  so  a  pc  with  only 
the  standard  ROMs  cannot  boot  off  a  hard 
disk — external  or  internal. 

Buried  deep  within  the  new  IBM  Technical 
Reference  manual  (version  2.02)  that  was  re¬ 
leased  in  support  of  both  the  XT  and  the  up¬ 
dated  pc  (the  pc  with  the  25 6K  motherboard)  is 
an  interesting  piece  of  information  that  bears 
directly  upon  the  issue  of  booting  from  an  add¬ 
on  disk.  The  manual  describes  a  rather  delight¬ 
ful  feature  that  IBM  added  to  the  ROM  code 
when  it  moved  to  the  256K  motherboard.  On 
all  XTs  and  newer  pcs,  a  short  piece  of  initiali¬ 
zation  code  has  been  added;  this  code  causes 
the  pc  to  go  browsing  through  certain  memory 
locations  (locations  GC8QOOH  to  OF4O0OH), 
looking  to  see  if  any  ROMs  are  installed 
therein.  If  the  BIOS  finds  a  valid  ROM  in¬ 
stalled  within  that  address  space,  it  branches  to 
the  code  in  that  ROM. 

Suppose  that  new  ROM  happens  to  contain 
a  device  driver  for  a  hard  disk,  as  well  as  code 
that  would  let  the  pc  boot  off  the  hard  disk. 
The  new  ROM  needs  some  way  of  telling  the 
BIOS  to  use  its  (the  new  ROM's)  code  for  boot¬ 
ing,  rather  than  the  code  in  the  standard  ROM 
BIOS.  And,  fortunately  for  us,  such  a  way 
exists. 

When  the  BIOS  executes  the  boot  code,  it 
does  not  jump  directly  to  the  code  that  will 
read  the  boot  record;  it  instead  executes  an  in¬ 
ternally  generated  interrupt,  which  causes  it  to 
jump  to  the  address  (and  execute  the  code) 
contained  in  location  64H,  the  memory  loca¬ 
tion  in  the  interrupt  table  that  points  to  the  lo¬ 
cation  of  the  bootstrap  loader.  In  the  normal 
course  of  events,  the  BIOS  itself  will  have 
loaded  that  location  with  an  address  that 
points  right  back  into  itself  somewhere,  that 
''somewhere"  being  the  location  of  the  boot 
code  in  the  standard  BIOS.  But  it's  a  very  easy 
task  for  the  newly  added  ROM,  when  given 
control  by  the  BIOS,  simply  to  change  the 
pointer  to  the  bootstrap  loader  in  the  interrupt 
table,  so  that  instead  of  pointing  back  into  the 
ROM  BIOS  it  points  to  boot  code  in  the  new 
ROM.  Having  done  that  bit  of  initialization  of 
its  own,  the  new  ROM  can  return  control  to 
the  BIOS  (which  still  has  to  finish  the  initializa¬ 
tion  procedures),  secure  in  the  knowledge  that 
when  it  comes  time  to  boot,  the  boot  code  in 
the  new  ROM  will  be  substituted  for  the  stan¬ 
dard  boot  code  in  the  ROM  BIOS. 

When  a  manufacturer  sells  you  an  add-on 
hard  disk,  he  must  include  device  driver  soft¬ 
ware  (a  device  driver  is  simply  some  code  that 
the  pc  will  execute  whenever  it  needs  to  access 
the  hard  disk).  What  all  the  discussion  of  the 
previous  paragraphs  boils  down  to  is  this;  If 
the  manufacturer  bums  his  device  driver  into  a 
ROM,  adds  some  boot  code  and  a  little  initiali¬ 
zation  routine,  and  gives  you  the  ROM  along 


2te 


softcilk 


with  the  disk,  you'll  have  a  hard  disk  you  can 
boot  from.  Considering  that  he's  got  to  supply 
you  the  device  driver  in  any  case,  and  that 
ROMs  are  fairly  cheap,  that  would  be  a  very 
small  expenditure  of  time  and  money  for  a 
very  sought-after  feature. 

So  why  aren't  more  manufacturers  offering 
it?  They  probably  will.  After  a  few  manufac¬ 
turers  start  offering  self-booting  hard  disks,  the 
rest  will  have  to  jump  on  the  bandwagon  to 
stay  competitive. 

And  surprise:  A  few  manufacturers  already 
are  offering  self-booting  add-on  hard  disks. 
For  example,  Maynard  Electronics  of  Cas¬ 
selberry  Florida,  offers  a  ten-megabyte  inter¬ 
nally  mounted  hard  disk  that  comes  complete 
with  an  EPROM;  plug  the  EPROM  into  the 
motherboard,  throw  away  your  boot  floppy, 
and  power  Her  up  (look  for  a  review  of  the 
Maynard  disk  in  a  future  issue). 

In  the  meantime,  booting  off  a  floppy  disk 
in  drive  A  doesn't  seem  all  that  bad  — until  you 
realize  that  every  time  you  finish  running  a 
large  program,  the  resident  portion  of  DOS 
(that  is,  the  part  of  the  operating  system  that, 
once  loaded,  never  leaves  memory)  goes  back 
to  that  same  floppy  drive  to  reload  the  tran¬ 
sient  portion.  And  that  can  be  a  true  pain .  (The 
transient  portion  of  DOS  is  the  part  of  the  op¬ 
erating  system  that  may  be  overwritten  by 
large  programs,  then  reloaded  when  needed. 
See  last  month's  column.) 

Fortunately,  DOS  offers  a  solution  to  this 
problem.  Unfortunately,  the  solution  didn't 
work  when  we  tried  it  last  month.  Fortunately, 
we  got  it  to  work  this  month. 

The  solution  lies  in  a  statement  that  can  be 
placed  in  the  configuration  file.  The  configura¬ 
tion  file  is  a  user-supplied  file  that  DOS  reads 
when  it  is  first  fired  up.  Inside  the  file  (which 
must  be  located  on  the  boot  disk  and  must  be 
named  ConKg.sys)  are  statements  that  tell 
DOS  how  to  configure  the  system.  The  state¬ 
ment 

DEVICE  =  WDRIVE.BIN 
for  example,  tells  DOS  to  look  for  a  file  called 
Wdrive.bin  and  load  it  as  a  device  driven  a  de¬ 
vice  driver  ts  a  program  that  conforms  to  sev¬ 
eral  predefined  standards  and  to  which  control 
is  passed  whenever  DOS  needs  to  access  the 
particular  hardware  device  that  the  driver  pro¬ 
gram  controls.  DOS  2.0  cannot  use  the  Great 
Lakes  hard  disk  until  the  program  Wdrive.bin 
is  loaded. 

Another  statement  that  can  be  included  in 
the  configuration  file  is  shell  (this  statement, 
unfortunately,  bears  the  same  name  as  Basic's 
shell  command— to  which  it  is  otherwise  en¬ 
tirely  unrelated).  Found  inside  a  configuration 
file,  tells  DOS  the  name  of  the  user-inter¬ 
face  shell  under  which  it  will  operate,  and 
where  to  find  that  shell. 

And  what  is  the  user- interface  shell?  Simply 
that  portion  of  DOS  with  which  you  interact 


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MEGAFINDER  lets  you  file  a 
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for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


most  directly.  As  an  example,  it's  the  shell  that 
causes  the  prompt 
A) 

to  be  printed.  The  shell  is  also  responsible  for 
interpreting  user  commands,  such  as  a  request 
for  a  directory: 

A>DIR  B: 

and,  for  that  reason,  is  also  known  as  the  com¬ 
mand  interpreter. 

You  may  recall  earlier  the  implication  that 
there  are  two  parts  to  DOS:  a  part  that's  al¬ 
ways  resident  and  a  transient  portion  that  may 
be  overlaid.  The  transient  (overlay able)  por¬ 
tion  is  the  command  interpreter,  a  program 
that's  quite  familiar  to  you  as  Command.com. 
When  you  terminate  a  program  that's  been 
running  from  the  hard  disk  and  your  pc  insists 
on  accessing  the  A  drive,  DOS  is  simply  trying 
to  reload  Command.com.  The  command  in¬ 
terpreter's  default  location  is  drive  A,  and  its 
default  name  is  Command.com.  So  unless  you 
tell  it  otherwise,  DOS  will  always  try  to  reload 
Command.com  from  drive  A — no  matter  how 
much  money  you  paid  for  your  hard  disk. 

You  can  tell  it  otherwise  by  means  of  the 
shell  command.  Shell  specifies  both  where  an 
alternate  shell  will  be  found  and  what  its  name 
is.  According  to  the  DOS  2.0  documentation, 
you  can  specify  an  alternate  shell  by  including 
the  following  line  somewhere  in  the  file  Con- 
fig.sys: 

SHELL  = 

[D:  ][PATHNAME]FILEN  AME 
where  d;  is  an  optional  drive  specifier. 

That  would  certainly  appear  to  solve  the 
problem:  Simply  put  Command.com  on  the 
hard  disk,  perhaps  in  a  directory  called  lSys- 
tem,  then  include  in  your  configuration  file  the 
statement 


SHELL  = 

C:  \  SYSTEM  \  COMMAND.COM 
And,  of  course,  if  you've  tried  that,  you  know 
it  doesn't  work.  Don't  blame  the  program¬ 
mers,  though;  blame  the  document  writers. 
(On  second  thought,  blame  them  both.) 

What  the  command  should  look  like  is: 

SHELL  = 

C:  \  SYSTEM  \  COMMAND.COM 
C:  \  SYSTEM  /P 

The  first  parameter  (c:\system\command- 
.com)  tells  DOS  that  the  command  interpreter 
it's  to  use  is  called  Command.com,  and  that 
the  first  time  it  is  loaded,  Command.com  will 
be  found  in  the  directory  \  System,  which  is 
located  on  drive  C.  The  second  parameter  tells 
DOS  that  when  it  comes  time  to  reload  Com¬ 
mand. com,  the  file  will  be  found  (again)  on 
drive  C,  (again)  in  the  directory  \  System. 
And  the  switch,  /p,  tells  DOS  that  this  name 
and  location  for  the  command  interpreter  are 
to  become  permanent,  to  be  changed  only 
when  DOS  is  rebooted.  Omitting  the  switch  in 
this  case  is  tantamount  to  omitting  the  whole 
statement. 

If  you're  familiar  with  the  set  environment 
command  (see  "System  Notebook"),  you  may 
know  that  the  shell  pathname  is  included  in  the 
environment  as  a  parameter  of  the  form: 

COMSPEC  =  C:  \  COMMAND.COM 
Don't  bother  trying  to  bypass  the  configura¬ 
tion  file  by  setting  the  Comspec  environment 
parameter  directly.  While  this  would  seem  to 
be  the  only  logical  and  consistent  place  to  store 
the  shell  parameter  (it  is,  after  all,  where  all 
other  programs  can  look  to  determine  the  shell 
name  and  location),  DOS  keeps  its  own  record 
elsewhere.  Maybe  this  will  be  cleaned  up  in  a 
future  revision  of  DOS  2.0.  With  any  luck,  the 


revision  will  also  correct  the  documentation  of 
the  shell  command. 

One  note  about  using  the  shell  statement  in 
a  configuration  file:  It's  a  good  idea  to  include 
the  shell's  directory  name  in  the  path.  In  the 
example  just  shown,  the  path  might  read: 

PATH=  \  SYSTEM 

More  on  Hard-Disk  Incompatibilities.  As 
noted  last  month,  you'll  have  trouble  running 
"foreign"  (translate  non-IBM)  operating  sys¬ 
tems  with  any  external  hard  disk  that  inter¬ 
faces  via  a  loadable  device  driver.  That's 
because,  rather  than  going  through  the  device 
driver  (which  can't  be  loaded,  since  it  was  writ¬ 
ten  for  PC-DOS),  the  foreign  operating  system 
must  make  some  assumptions  about  the  hard¬ 
ware;  the  most  significant  assumption  that  the 
OS  makes  is  that  the  hardware  looks  like  an 
XT.  The  problem  can  of  course  occur  with  ap¬ 
plication  software:  Any  software  that  makes 
assumptions  about  the  hardware  and  then  at¬ 
tempts  to  access  the  hardware  directly,  rather 
than  going  through  the  OS,  is  going  to  run  into 
the  same  problem  as  the  foreign  operating  sys¬ 
tems.  That's  one  of  the  principal  reasons  Alan 
Boyd,  in  his  "System  Notebook"  column,  has 
been  so  opposed  to  programs  that  make  end 
runs  around  the  operating  system  and  access 
the  hardware  directly. 

As  with  operating  systems,  there  is  some 
subset  of  programs  that  bypass  all  or  parts  of 
the  operating  system,  sometimes  out  of  real  ne¬ 
cessity,  frequently  out  of  imagined  necessity. 
One  of  those  programs  is  HardLook,  Peter 
Norton's  utility  for  examining  the  XT's  hard 
disk.  This  program  doesn't  work  with  the 
Great  Lakes  drive.  We'll  mention  any  other  in¬ 
compatibilities  we  run  across  as  time  goes 
by.  ▲ 


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266 


softcilk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


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Mexico 


Population:  65,000,000 
Area:  761,600  sq.m. 
Currency:  Peso 


PYXEL  Visuals 
gives  you 

•  Horizontal  or 
vertical  hard 
copy 

•  Automatic  or 
prompted  on¬ 
screen 

presentations 

•  Character  sizes 
1/4"  to  1"  high 

•  Every  character 
individually 
designed  for  best  J 
appearance 

•  HELP  at  the  press  of  a  key 

•  NO  COMMANDS  to  learn 
—or  forget 

•  Quick  changes  to  screens 
and  presentations 

Our  customers  let  us  know 
they  love  it,  but  some  want 
even  more.  So  we  created 
BATCHPRINT.  For  the 
person  who  needs  even  more 
quality,  more  control,  and 
more  freedom. 


BATCHPRINT  prints  PYXEL 
Visuals  screens  in  one  of  four 
proportionally  spaced  print 
modes:  high  resolution  bold, 
high  resolution  light,  low 
resolution  bold,  and  low 
resolution  light. 

You  choose  the 
spacing  between 
screens  on  the  hard 
copy  so  you  can 
print  short  pages 
and  very  long 
pages.  Of  course, 
with  a  name  like 
BATCHPRINT,  you 
can  print  up  to  42 
screens  while  you 
get  a  second  cup  of 
coffee. 


Our  support  is  as  simple  as 
our  software.  We  value  our 
customers.  You  can  call  and 
get  help  with  a  problem. 

You’ll  receive  updates  and 
enhancements  without 
rebuying  the  package.  And,  as 
a  registered  customer,  you’ll 
be  offered  new  products  at 
reduced  prices. 


Actual  IBM  Graphics  Prmtof  Output 


With  all  that,  you  still  don’t 
have  to  learn  commands  or 
pay  a  lot.  BATCHPRINT  is 
just  $75.00. 

pyxEi 

anppLicniions 


2917  Mohawk  Drive 
Richmond,  VA  23235 
(804)  320-5573 

PYXEL  Visuals  -  $98 
BATCHPRINT- $75 
MasterCard/Visa  Accepted 

Requires:  IBM  PC  with  PC-DOS;  128K  RAM; 
Color/Graphics  Adapter;  Graphics  Monitor; 
EPSON  MX-100,  MX -80  with  GRAFTRAX,  FX- 
80  or  IBM  Graphics  Printer. 

DOS  2.0  and  XT  compatible. 


|er  Sex  Differences  1 

ance’s  Smart  Card . . .  and  M< 


CABLE  TV  AND  TELEPHONES  BRING 
COMPUTER  PROGRAMMING  TO  HOMES 


shall  we  watch  tonight,  Henry?" 
'7  dont  know;  lets  have  a  look  at  the  TV 
listing.  There  are  two  horror  movies ,  a  coun¬ 
try  western  concert ,  and  the  usual  stuff . 
Nothing  for  me. " 

"I  think  I'll  play  Zork  then.  Switch  to 
thatf  please. " 

'7  think  Til  read  a  magazine , " 

On  the  eve  of  the  year  1964,  forget  about 

The  keyboard  in  the  picture  above  is  one 
component  of  The  Games  Networks 
Window.  The  mansion  is  the  Los  Angeles 
headquarters  of  The  Games  Network. 


test-tube  babies,  Big  Brother,  newspeak,  and 
doublethink.  Get  ready  instead  for  the  begin¬ 
nings  of  what  should  become  a  big  busi- 
ness  — cable-  and  telephone-based 
computerized  information  and  entertain¬ 
ment  networks  for  the  home. 

They  have  names  like  The  Games  Net¬ 
work,  GameLine,  and  Tel  eLearning.  Soon 
these  networks  may  be  part  of  daily  home  life 
for  many  people.  And  that's  not  just  people 
living  in  affluent  suburban  homes.  With  ca¬ 
ble  television,  it's  possible  to  reach  hordes  of 
sensation-hungry  middle-class  apartment 
GOTO  page  266,  column  2 


A  New  Scheme 
For  Locking 
Up  Software 

In  the  seemingly  never-ending  contro¬ 
versy  over  the  illegal  copying  of  computer 
software,  the  phrase  "protection  scheme"  is 
often  heard,  but  not  many  people  in  the  in¬ 
dustry — publishers,  authors,  everyday  con¬ 
sumers,  and  certainly  not  pirates — profess 
much  liking  for  the  various  protection 
schemes  that  have  been  used  in  the  past.  And 
yet  the  idea  that  software  can  in  fact  be 
locked  up  tenaciously  hangs  on. 

The  fact  is,  just  as  soon  as  a  new  scheme  is 
developed,  the  truly  dedicated  pirates  start 
hacking  away  at  it.  And  they  always  break 
it.  Some  observers  feel  that  it  will  always  be 
impossible  to  create  a  completely  unbreak¬ 
able  scheme.  An  alternate  plan  is  to  make  the 
economics  of  the  situation  work  to  the  ad¬ 
vantage  of  the  software  publisher. 

In  response  to  this  notion,  three  Israeli  sci¬ 
entists  have  proposed  a  new  protection 
scheme.  The  scheme  involves  the  deliberate 
use  of  "weak  bits"  in  special  sections  of  a 
program. 

A  weak  bit  is  a  bit  that  is  sometimes  read 
as  a  0  and  sometimes  as  a  1,  The  idea  is  that 
personal  computer  owners  will  not  be  able  to 
duplicate  the  weak  bits  on  their  own  ma- 
chines—unless  they  modify  their  disk 
drives— and  the  software  will  not  run  with¬ 
out  them. 

This  protection  method  was  devised  by 
Adi  Shamir,  a  mathematician  at  the  Weiz- 
mann  Institute  of  Science,  and  his  students. 
Amos  Fiat  and  Yossi  Tulpan,  Shamir  pro¬ 
poses  that  hundreds  of  weak  bits  could  be  in¬ 
tentionally  written  on  certain  tracks  or 
sectors  of  a  disk.  The  special  sections— called 
coupons —would  be  chosen  by  the  software 
designer  and  hidden  within  the  program. 

When  a  user  boots  a  program  that  incor¬ 
porates  this  scheme,  the  computer  is  in¬ 
structed  to  check  for  weak  bits  by  reading 
over  the  coupon  several  times.  The  weak  bits 
show  up  sometimes  as  Os  and  sometimes  as 
Is,  and  the  computer  checks  to  make  sure 
there  is  no  consistency  in  the  way  the  coupon 
is  read. 

This  scheme  would  prevent  users  from 
copying  programs  because  disk  drives  are 
normally  incapable  of  introducing  weak  bits. 
If  a  user  tried  to  copy  the  coupon,  the  result 
would  be  a  copy  containing  only  normal 
bits— unambiguous  Os  and  Is  introduced 
more  or  less  arbitrarily  by  the  computer 
whenever  a  weak  bit  was  encountered. 

GOTO  page  264 ,  column  2 

w* 


sofcalk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


Computing  Sex  Differences 


Personal  Computer 
SMARTWARE™ 


Revelation™  Data  Base  for 
IBM  PC  &  XT  $595 
Revelation™  BASIC  $300 

Large  System  Relational  Database 
now  available  for  IBM  PC 

*  Variable  length  records 

Up  tn  65K  in  length 
(That's  right  65,000  characters) 

*  Dictionary  driven  files  &  reports 

*  8087  compatible  for  superior  number 
crunching 

*  Report  writer  with  many  levels  of  sort 

*  Data  compatible  with  Pick™ 
operating  system  mini 

*  XT  compatible  -  handles  files  as  large 
as  the  disk 

*  MS  DOS  compatible 

*  IBM  PC,  Columbia,  Eagle,  Compact, 
Hyperion  etc.  compatible 

*  Many  more  features 

*  32  bit  technology,  not  old  fashioned 
8  bit  technology 

*  More  powerful  than  most  mainframe 
data  bases 


The  Big  Picture1  M  $  1 7  5 

Financial  decision  making  tool  for 
VisiCalc®  on  Apple  III,  lie 

*  ‘'What  if"  your  5  year  personal 

-  Cashflow 

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*  Provides  evaluation  of  different 
strategies  with  sensitivity  testing. 

*  Similar  model  done  by  a  bank  cost 
85,000  per  cun! 

*  Superb  documentation 
■  Multiplan  version  soon 

Dealer  inquiries  invited 


Send  me  a  catalog!  s  T 1 2  i 

CYPHER,  121  Second  Si..  San  tnnfivro,  CA  0-410^ 

NAME _ 

COMPANY  _ _ _ 

ADDRESS  _ 

CITY  STATE _  ZIP 

800-SMARTWARE 
Visa/MC  accepted 
In  California  415-974-5297 


Parents  May  Be 
Root  of  Computer 
Sexism  in  Kids 

Why  is  it  that  women  of  all  ages  are  lag¬ 
ging  behind  the  male  population  in  embrac¬ 
ing  the  computer  revolution?  Does  it  begin  in 
the  school  and  home?  And,  if  it  does,  who  is 
to  blame — industry,  the  schools,  parents? 

Two  Stanford  University  psychologists, 
Irene  Miura  and  Robert  D.  Hess,  conducted 
three  studies  of  computer  use  among  school- 
children  and  found  that  girls  begin  falling  be¬ 
hind  at  an  early  age.  Their  survey  of 
eighty-seven  children— boys  and  girls  from 
five  to  eight  years  of  age — showed  that  only 
boys  were  owners  of  home  computers  at 


these  early  ages.  Though  the  situation 
changes  when  students  reach  junior  high 
school,  the  boys  still  outnumber  the  girls  as 
owners  two  to  one. 

This  first  survey  also  revealed  that  there 
are  definite  sex  differences  in  the  amount  of 
time  spent  using  home  computers.  Miura  and 
Hess  found  that,  in  a  typical  computer-own¬ 
ing  family  the  son  spent  twro  to  three  hours 
per  day  programming  and  playing  games, 
the  father  used  the  computer  regularly  for 
business,  and  the  mother  and  daughter  didn't 
use  it  at  all. 

Miura  and  Hess's  survey  of  twenty-three 


computer  camp  directors— including  infor¬ 
mation  on  over  five  thousand  campers— 
found  that  girls  make  up  27  percent  of  enroll¬ 
ment  in  beginning  and  intermediate  classes. 
The  proportion  drops  to  14  percent  in  the  ad¬ 
vanced  classes  and  to  5  percent  in  the  highest 
level  courses.  An  interesting  pattern  was  un¬ 
covered  by  Miura  and  Hess— female  enroll¬ 
ment  in  computer  camps  decreased  as  the 
cost  of  the  camps  increased— an  indication 
that  many  parents  are  more  aggressive  in  en¬ 
couraging  boys  to  tackle  computing. 

In  their  third  study,  Miura  and  Hess  had 
children  and  adults  rate  seventy-five  soft¬ 
ware  titles  according  to  whether  they  were  of 
greater  interest  to  boys  or  girls.  Adults  and 
children  agreed  that  only  5  percent  of  the  ti¬ 
tles  were  of  more  interest  to  girls,  while  more 
than  one-third  of  the  titles  were  of  greater  in¬ 
terest  to  boys. 


Schools,  parents,  and  industry  must  all 
take  blame  for  the  failure  to  make  computing 
more  attractive  to  the  young  female  popula¬ 
tion  of  this  country.  The  scene  seems  to  be 
changing  for  the  better,  but  slowly.  Altering 
the  perceptions  of  parents— those  who  be¬ 
lieve  that  computers  are  naturally  the  prov¬ 
ince  of  boys — would  help  immensely.  True, 
the  lack  of  software  specifically  designed  for 
young  girls  is  more  than  noticeable,  but  the 
lack  of  opportunities  for  young  girls  to  en¬ 
counter  present  software — which  often  tran¬ 
scends  sex  differences — is  an  even  more 
serious  problem.  DH 


270 


softolk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


for  Portable,  Personal  and  Desktop  Computers 

Available  for  these  popular  8-blt  and  16-bit  microcomputer  formats: 


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In  California  call  1-800-732-2311  - 

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Send  Orders  To:  1280-C  Newell  Avenue,  Suite  147-H,  Walnut  Creek,  California  94596 

.  When  ordering  please  mention  or  Include  the  Ad  number  appearing  near  our  telephone  n  u  m  be  r  •  O  rdersahl  pped  within  48  hours  vis  UPS-Add  $5.00 for 
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capacity:  400  Accounts  •  Monthly  Transactions  capacity:  1 ,000  with  200K 
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ACCOUNTS  RECEIVABLE  provides  instant,  on-line  customer 
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•  Monthly  Transactions  capacity:  800  with  200K  diskette;  3,500  with  500K 
diskette;  7,000  per  Megabyte  with  a  Hard  Disk. 

ACCOUNTS  PAYABLE  maintains  complete  vendor/voucher 
history  and  includes  check-writing  capabilities.  Current  and  aged 
payable  reports  are  available  upon  command.  It  prepares  an  extremely 
useful  cash  flow/cash  requirements  report  that  greatly  improves 
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checks  (on  commercially  available  forms  on  which  your  company  name, 
address  and  logo  can  be  imprinted)  with  comprehensive  check  stubs 
that  your  vendors  will  appreciate  •  Produces  1 1  reports  and  documents 

•  Automatic  pay  selection  program  allows  payment  by  due  date  or  by 
discount  date  •  Manual  and  automatic  checkwriting  •  Check  register 

•  Detailed  audit  trail  4  Itemized  monthly  transactions  •  Master  File 
capacity:  400  Vendors  •  Monthly  Transactions  capacity:  800  with  200K 
diskette;  3,500  with  500K  diskette;  7,000  per  Megabyte  with  a  Hard  Disk. 

PAYROLL  is  a  complete,  easy-to-use  professional-quality  payroll 
system.  Be  the  office  hero  each  week  when  the  checks  come  out  on  time! 
This  program  calculates  payroll  for  every  type  of  employee  (hourly, 
salaried,  and  commissioned)  and  prints  payroll  checks  (with  popular, 
comprehensive  check  stubs)  with  an  absolute  minimum  of  input.  Your 
company  name  and  logo  can  appear  on  these,  too.  •  Stores  and  reports 
comprehensive  employee  and  payroll  information.  •  Maintains  monthly, 
quarterly,  and  yearly  totals  for  reporting  purposes  in  multiple  states(!) 

•  Offers  user-maintainable  Federal,  State,  and  local  tax  tables(i).  • 
W-2  printing  •  941  Reporting  •  Produces  10  reports  and  documents 

•  Master  File  capacity:  400  employees.  An  outstanding  Payroll  package! 


Produces  42  Reports  &  Documents: 


General  Ledger  1.  Chart  of  Accounts  2.  Chart  of  Accounts  with  summary  dollar 
amounts  3.  Chart  of  Accounts  with  prior  year  comparisons  4.  Daily  Transactions  Report 
5.  Itemized  Monthly  Transactions  6.  Balance  Sheet  7.  Balance  Sheet  with  prior  year 
comparison  a.  Income  Statement  9.  Income  Statement  with  prior  year  comparison 
10.  Departmental  Income  Statement(s)  11.  Departmental  Income  Statement(s)  with  prior 
year  comparison  12.  Detail  report  for  individual  accounts  13.  Trial  Balance  Statement 
Accounts  Receivable  1.  Daily  Transactions  Report  2.  Invoices  (with  or  without 
preprinted  forms)  3.  Statements  (with  or  without  pre-printed  forms)  4.  Summary  Aging 
Report  5.  Detailed  Aging  Report  8.  Itemized  Monthly  Transactions  7.  Detailed  Customer 
Activity  Report  8.  Summary  Customer  Account  Report 

Accounts  Payable  I.  Daily  Voucher  Report  2.  Daily  Credit  Report  3.  Checks 
with  Detailed  stubs  4.  Check  Register  S.  General  Ledger  Transfer  Report  6.  Cash 
Requirements  Report  7.  Transaction  Register  8.  Open  Voucher  Report  9.  Aged  Payables 
Report  10.  Detailed  Vendor  Activity  Report  11.  Summary  Vendor  Account  Report 
Payroll  I.  Federal  Tax  Tables  2.  State  Tax  Tables  3.  Payroll  checks  with  stubs 
4.  Payroll  Check  Register  5.  Monthly  Payroll  Summary  8.  Quarterly  Payroll  Summary 
7.  General  Ledger  Transfer  Report  8.  Detailed  Employee  File  Listing  9.  Produces  941 
Worksheet  10.  Prints  annual  W-2  Forms 

System  Requirements:  Either  CP/IW*'  or  MS-DOS  (PC-DOS)  • 
Microsoft  BASIC  •  64K  RAM  •  Two  disk  drives  or  hard  disk  •  132  column 
wide  carriage  printer,  or  an  8V2  "xl  1 "  printer  with  compressed  print  mode 
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users’  Newsletter,  even  call  our  Technical  Support  Group  with  your  ques¬ 
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Boston  Science 
Museum  To  Open 
Computer  Center 

Boston  continues  to  be  the  site  of 
many  exciting  developments  in  the  computer 
revolution.  Now  the  city's  Museum  of  Sci¬ 
ence,  which  is  situated  alongside  the  Charles 
River,  is  poised  to  make  its  contribution — 
which,  when  combined  with  the  city's  experi¬ 
ence  so  far,  could  make  Boston  the  most 
computer-literate  city  in  the  world. 

In  January  1984,  the  museum  will  open  its 
new  computer  center.  By  offering  instruction 
and  information  in  various  aspects  of  com¬ 
puting,  the  center  will  seek  to  bring  Boston's 
children  (and  adults)  into  the  information 
age.  Last  year  the  museum  drew  820,000  visi¬ 
tors,  according  to  museum  officials,  includ¬ 
ing  some  175,000  schoolchildren  and 
teachers. 

Two  phases  are  planned  for  the  computer 
center  at  present.  Scheduled  to  begin  early 
next  year  are  workshops  on  computer  pro¬ 
gramming  and  education.  The  museum  has 
set  up  two  classrooms  in  twenty-five  hundred 
square  feet,  adjoining  the  main  building. 

The  center  plans  to  offer  instruction  in 
Logo,  Basic,  and  Pascal,  as  well  as  special 
courses  on  computer  awareness.  Apple  Com¬ 
puter  and  several  other  major  computer  com¬ 
panies  have  already  agreed  to  aid  in  this 
effort  by  donating  computers. 

The  center  also  will  establish  a  resource 
library  of  hardware,  software,  and  printed 
material.  An  annual  conference  will  dissemi¬ 
nate  school-based  programs  to  educators. 
Likewise,  the  Lowell  Charitable  Foundation 
is  donating  $50,000  a  year  for  five  years  to 
the  center,  specifically  for  the  training  of  pub¬ 
lic-school  teachers  in  the  use  of  computers  in 
education. 

Although  programming  will  be  taught, 
the  primary  thrust  of  the  center  will  be  to¬ 
ward  the  practical  applications  of  computers. 


The  assistant  director  of  education  at  the  mu¬ 
seum,  Charles  H.  Howarth,  is  responsible  for 
implementing  this  program. 

"Many  people  are  going  to  realize  that 
they  wish  to  be  computer  users,  not  pro¬ 
grammers,"  Howarth  says.  "For  these  people 
we  will  provide  instruction  in  such  areas  as 
word  processing,  database  management, 
home  instruction,  and  spreadsheet  utiliza¬ 
tion."  According  to  Howarth,  the  cost  will  be 
less  than  fifty  dollars  per  eight-hour  course. 

Phase  two  will  see  the  center  expand  to 
six  thousand  square  feet,  including  another 
classroom.  The  Museum  of  Science  is  so  en¬ 
thusiastic  about  the  center  that  the  projected 
expansion  will  even  cannibalize  some  of  the 
museum's  precious  parking  structure.  In 
downtown  Boston,  where  parking  is  scarce, 
this  signifies  the  height  of  commitment. 

The  computer  center  will  get  a  boost  if  a 
proposed  joint  venture  with  the  Massachu¬ 
setts  Institute  of  Technology  occurs.  This 
would  involve  the  training  of  high  school  sci¬ 
ence  teachers  in  computer  simulation  and 
modeling. 

The  center  also  has  approached  IBM  for 
support,  specifically  hardware.  The  museum 
currently  houses  the  IBM  "Mathematica"  ex¬ 
hibit,  which,  until  last  year,  resided  in  Chica¬ 
go's  Museum  of  Science  and  Industry.  The 
fifteen  -  hundred -square -foot,  twenty-five- 
year-old  exhibit  explains  the  mysteries  of 
mathematics  in  a  number  of  ways.  Whether 
or  not  IBM  helps  support  the  center,  school- 
children  will  tour  the  exhibit  and  then  be  able 
to  experiment  at  the  computer  center  with 
what  they  learn. 

The  center  will  explore  all  aspects  of  the 
computer  age,  says  Howarth.  "We  want  to 
get  closely  involved  with  the  local  research 
community.  The  areas  of  study  will  include 
software  evaluation  and  cognitive  psychol¬ 
ogy."  These  and  other  projects'  could  affect 
the  development  of  educational  software. 

Boston's  Museum  of  Science  is  not  wait¬ 
ing  for  computers  to  be  stuck  in  some  future 
"Late  Twentieth  Century"  wing.  By  bringing 
present  technology  to  the  people  of  today, 
the  museum  is  trying  to  build  a  better 
future.  RRA 


tection  scheme — or  for  any  other  reason. 
That's  a  start  to  an  argument,  but  it's  never 
wise  to  underestimate  the  resourcefulness  of 
pirates.  If  Shamir's  method  were  used  widely 
in  the  industry,  more  likely  than  not  there 
would  soon  be  a  whole  lot  of  modified  disk 
Needless  to  say,  truly  dedicated  pirates  drives  floating  around, 
are  probably  already  busy  messing  with  their  The  jury  is  still  out  on  the  usefulness  of 

disk  drives  to  make  them  copy  weak  bits.  Shamir's  scheme.  The  most  important  factor 

Central  to  Shamir's  plan  is  the  assumption  in  any  use  or  nonuse  of  software  prptec- 

that  most  pirates  won't  risk  screwing  up  their  tion— how  much  the  retail  price  of  the  soft- 

hardware  for  the  challenge  of  breaking  a  pro-  ware  would  be  affected— is  still  unknown.  DH 

softcilk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


Take  Your  Computer’s  Commands 
And  PutlhemWherelhey  Belong. 
On  Your  Keyboard. 

PC-DocuMate™  is  a  documentation  template  that  fits  the  keyboard  of  your  IBM  PC. 
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sionally  designed,  logically  organized  and  comprehensive.  Each  template  is  printed 
on  both  sides  on  durable,  non-glare  polystyrene  and  is  color-matched  to  your  PC 
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PC-DocuMates  now  available  for  each  of  the  following: 

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89 

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The  only  way  to  go  beyond 
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Available  for  most  Winchester . 
hard  disk  drive  systems.  Source 
code  permits  adaptation  and 
customization.  The  only  way  to 
have  unlimited  drive  expansion 
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Windrive. 

JSPOOL  $40 

Redirectable,  Programmable 
Spooler  with  an  arbitrary  size 
buffer,  xon/xoff,  supports  print¬ 
ing  to  serial  and  parallel  ports. 

JRAM  $800 

The  only  memory  board  which 
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per  system.  512K  bytes  con¬ 
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Includes  JFORMAT  and  JETDRIVE 

TALL  TREE  SYSTEMS 
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Palo  Alto,  CA  94303 
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Cable  TV 

continued  from  page  261 


and  condominium  dwellers  in  urban  and 
suburban  areas. 

The  idea  of  bringing  computer  program¬ 
ming  directly  into  the  home  has  been  around 
awhile  and  has  spawned  several  ventures 
since  microcomputers  first  appeared  seven 
years  ago.  Personal  computer  owners  have 
had  the  Source,  CompuServe,  Dow  Jones 
News/ Retrieval  Service,  and  countless  local 
bulletin  board  systems  to  broaden  their  com¬ 
puting  horizons.  Offering  everything  from 
games  to  financial  news,  these  services  have 
done  well — though  they've  by  no  means 
taken  the  country  by  storm. 

Many  people  believe  that  telecommunica¬ 
tions  is  the  one  capability  that  will  ensure  the 
microcomputer  a  place  in  the  home.  Roughly 
analogous  to  a  phonograph  when  standing 
alone,  a  personal  computer  hooked  up  to  an 
information  or  entertainment  network  is 
more  akin  to  a  radio.  It's  safe  to  say  that  nei¬ 
ther  game  machines  nor  personal  computers 
have  become  as  important  as  a  radio  is  to  the 
average  household.  But  as  prices  come 
down,  peformance  goes  up,  service  im¬ 
proves,  and  better  software  appears,  per¬ 
sonal  computers  should  find  a  place  in  many 
millions  of  American  homes. 

Right  now,  though,  the  home  market  is 
confusing  to  say  the  least.  Increasingly,  the 
public  has  a  choice  between  purchasing  home 
computers,  renting  them,  or  getting  most  of 
the  same  functions  through  videotex  or  a  like 
service.  A  year  ago,  Atari,  Mattel,  and  Col- 
eco  made  millions.  Now  these  companies  are 
close  to  foundering  because  of  consumers' 
disenchantment  with  low-priced  home  ar¬ 
cade  games.  The  new  year  looks  to  be  an  im¬ 
portant  testing  time,  a  time  when  trends  will 
be  identified  and  acted  upon. 

A  look  at  some  of  the  coming  games  and 
entertainment  services,  both  cable-  and  tele- 
phone-based,  reveals  a  number  of  different 
approaches  to  bringing  computer  technology 
to  the  home.  Though  electronic  mail,  elec¬ 
tronic  banking,  and  other  nonentertainment 
applications  are  starting  to  appear  on  the 
scene — and  are  perceived  as  the  ultimate  sell¬ 
ing  point  of  telecommunications  services— 
it's  games  that  are  likely  to  capture  the  most 
public  attention  at  first. 

What  could  be  easier  for  game  players 
than  renting  a  terminal  and  getting  a  steady 
stream  of  games  from  the  local  cable  com¬ 
pany?  There  are  no  cartridges  or  floppy  disks 
to  worry  about  and  no  difficult  questions  to 
ponder,  such  as,  "Is  this  game  worth  driving 


ten  miles  and  spending  thirty  dollars." 

And  if  games  can  be  sent  over  the  cable, 
why  not  other  kinds  of  computer  program¬ 
ming?  The  only  trick  would  be  getting  the 
proper  hardware  into  the  hands  of  end  users. 
At  some  point — to  realize  the  usefulness  of 
home  finance,  word  processing,  database, 
and  educational  applications — users  are  go¬ 
ing  to  require  the  ability  to  save  data. 

A  cable  programming  company  in  Los 
Angeles— The  Games  Network— has  started 
a  service  through  which  users  can  rent  a 
game-playing  device  and  receive  games  over 
cable  television.  Eventually,  the  game  device 
will  be  equipped  to  handle  more  serious 
home  computer  applications. 

The  Games  Network  will  begin  operation 
in  southern  California's  Orange  County 
early  next  year.  From  the  land  of  Goofy  and 
Reggie,  The  Games  Network  will  branch  out 
over  the  country  and  eventually  Canada  and 
the  United  Kingdom.  Close  to  five  hundred 
cable  companies  have  expressed  interest  in 
carrying  The  Games  Network. 

The  particulars  of  The  Games  Network's 
scheme  are  impressive  and  it's  easy  to  see 
why  the  company's  initial  stock  offering  was 
a  success — the  price  of  a  share  jumped  from 
$2  to  $5.25  the  first  day— even  before  the 
company  had  provided  service  to  a  single 
regular  customer. 

This  past  fall,  the  system  was  test-mark¬ 
eted  on  the  Group  W  Cable  system  in  Fuller¬ 
ton,  California.  Officials  of  the  cable 
company  reported  positive  subscriber  reac¬ 
tion  to  the  programming  offered  and  few 
technical  problems. 

Games  Network  users  receive  two  pieces 
of  hardware— a  full  keyboard  and  a  control 
box  that  includes  64K  of  RAM.  The  key¬ 
board  has  a  separate  microprocessor  and  two 
angled,  bar-shaped  game  keys  on  each  end. 
Users  subscribe  to  the  service  through  the  ca¬ 
ble  company,  which,  in  turn,  installs  (and 
services)  The  Games  Network  hardware. 

The  whole  unit  is  known  as  The  Window. 
It  has  a  three-voice  sound  generator  and  can 
produce  four  thousand  colors,  with  standard 
Apple  resolution.  The  unit  will  support  both 
switch- type  (Atari,  Commodore)  and  poten¬ 
tiometer  (Apple/ IBM)  joysticks,  which  will 
most  likely  be  offered  to  customers  by  the  ca¬ 
ble  companies. 

Each  month,  twenty  games  are  available 
through  the  service.  Users  pay  a  one-time  in¬ 
stallation  fee  that  depends  on  the  individual 
cable  company  and  then  sixteen  dollars  a 
month  to  subscribe. 

The  games?  Try  Snack  Attack,  Lode  Run¬ 
ner,  Aztec,  Wizardry,  and  Zork .  The  found¬ 
ers  of  The  Games  Network  were  raised  on 
Apple  II  games.  And  it's  these  games — the 
ones  Apple  owners  have  known  about 
GOTO  page  268,  column  2 


274 


SOftalk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


First  Base: 

high  powered  information 
filing  at  a  very  low  price.  ^ 

$39.95  , 

For  the  IBM  PC  PSa 


O 

.?M 


“It’s  the  best  software 
buy  I  ever  made!” 


“I’ve  been  looking  for  a  filing  system  that’s 
easy  to  use  but  still  delivers  the  power  and 
flexibility  1  need.  1  spent  several  hundred 
dollars  on  high  priced  programs  and  all  1 
got  was  confused!  Then  I  tried  FIRST 
BASE  for  $39.95.  It’s  fantastic!” 

FIRST  BASE  can  be  learned  in  minutes,  yet 
it  has  more  useful  features  than  data  base 
programs  costing  much  more.  With  FIRST 
BASE  you  have  complete  control  of  the 
screen  layout  of  your  records  and  of  the 
heading,  type,  and  length  of  each  line  of  in¬ 
formation.  You  can  sort  your  records, 
search  for  specific  information,  and  update 
any  entry.  You  can  design  customized 
printed  reports,  sum  or  average  fields  of 
numeric  data,  and  create  formatted  mail¬ 
ing  labels.  You  also  get  a  thorough  manual 
with  extensive  examples.  All  this  and  more 
for  just  $39.95. 

With  FIRST  BASE  you  can  create  mailing 
lists,  customer  lists,  inventory  records,  per¬ 


sonnel  records,  job  cost  summaries,  and 
files  on  just  about  anything. 

FIRST  BASE:  available  for  the  IBM  PC  and 
IBM  PC  compatibles. 

You  can  order  FIRST  BASE  with  VISA, 
MASTERCARD,  or  C.O.D.  by  calling:  217- 
762-5301 .  Or  by  sending  a  check  or  money 
order  payable  to  Charter  Software  for 
$39.95  plus  $5.00  postage  and  handling  to: 

Charter  Software 

P.O.  Box  70  Monticello,  Illinois  61856 
Illinois  resident  add  5%  sales  tax. 


□  Enclosed  is  my  check  or  money  order 

□  Please  send  C.O.D.  □  MasterCard  □  Visa 

Card  # _ exp.  date _ 

Name  on  card _ 

Signature _ 

Quantity _ x  $39.95  = _ 

Shipping  $5  each  copy  = _ 


Address _ 

City,  State,  Zip_ 


Basic/HELP  Makes 
Basic  Programming 
Easier  and  Faster! 

Basic/HELP  eliminates  or  reduces 
the  time-consuming  and  fustrating 
need  to  interrupt  your  work  to  search 
through  the  Basic  manual. 

If  you  don't  remember  exactly  how 
a  command  works,  just  enter  7’  and 
the  name  of  the  command  (or  only 
the  first  few  letters)  and  Basic/HELP 
puts  the  details  onto  the  top  of  the 
screen  for  you,  without  erasing  your 
program. 

You  get  a  description  of  what  the 
command  does,  an  example  of  its 
use,  cross-reference  to  similar  com¬ 
mands,  and  in  the  unlikely  event 
you  need  it  the  page  number  and 
the  section  of  the  manual  where 
you  can  find  more  information. 

And  you  get  all  of  this  immediately, 
because  Basic/HELP  resides  in 
memory  while  you  are  programming. 

AVAILABLE  NOW  FOR  THE  IBM  P.C. 
AND  THE  COMPAQ  P.C. 

COMING  SOON  FOR  THE  APPLE  //e. 


Basic/HELP  is  available  from 
your  Local  Dealer 
or  directly  from  $  !" 

Southeastern  El 

Software,  the  people  who  help 
you  communicate  with  — 

DATA  CAPTURE  4.0 
DATA  CAPTURE  //e 
DATA  CAPTURE/pc. 

/HELP  is  a  trademark  of  Southeastern  Software. 

IBM  is  a  trademark  of  International  Business  Machine. 
Compaq  is  a  trademark  of  Compaq  Computer  Corporation. 
Apple  //e  is  a  trademark  of  Apple  Computer  Corporation. 


Software  Designed  With  You  In  Mind. 

Southeastern  Software 

7743  Briarwood  Drive  •  New  Orleans,  LA  701 28 
504/  246-8438  504/  246-7937 


Cable  TV 

continued  from  page  266 


through  the  long  and  weary  years  of  car¬ 
tridge-mania — that  The  Games  Network  is 
banking  on. 

In  theory,  the  game  makers  that  sign  up 
with  The  Games  Network— already  signed 
are  Broderbund,  Edu-Ware,  Funtastic,  and 
forty  others — should  benefit  from  the  expo¬ 
sure  their  products  receive  on  the  service. 

The  Games  Network  says  its  relationship 
to  the  software  industry  is  roughly  analogous 
to  that  of  radio  to  the  recording  industry. 
One  difference  is  that  the  users  of  The  Games 
Network  cannot  record  the  software  that 
comes  over  the  cable. 

In  other  ways,  the  radio  analogy  seems 
apt— at  least  until  experience  proves  it  other¬ 
wise.  The  Games  Network  provides  ''air¬ 
play"  of  sorts  for  commercially  available 
computer  games.  Once  users  get  a  look  at 
what  computer  games  (and  eventually  other 
software)  are  like,  presumably  they'll  think 
harder  about  buying  the  real  thing. 

The  Games  Network  is  conservative  in  its 
expectations  for  the  first  year  of  operation. 
Subscribers  will  number  in  the  hundreds  of 
thousands,  not  millions,  according  to 
a  company  spokesman.  But  the  fact  is— 
through  the  wonder  of  cable  television— The 
Games  Network  could  really  take  off. 

The  one  previous  attempt  to  provide  an 
interactive  game-playing  service  via  cable 
television  has  stood  as  an  example  for  The 
Games  Network.  An  example  of  what  not 
to  do. 

A  joint  venture  between  Mattel  and  Gen¬ 
eral  Instrument,  PlayCable  began  in  thirteen 
cable  systems  in  1981.  Of  the  six  hundred 
fifty  thousand  cable  subscribers  who  have  ac¬ 
cess  to  PlayCable,  fewer  than  3  percent  have 
signed  up  for  the  service. 

Two  factors  account  for  the  poor  show¬ 
ing  of  PlayCable.  First,  the  service  requires 
subscribers  to  purchase  Mattel's  Intellivision 
game  player  for  a  couple  of  hundred  bucks; 
and  second,  the  games  themselves  are  not 
good  enough  to  attract  a  large  audience.  Cer¬ 
tain  fans  of  the  system  defend  PlayCable,  cit¬ 
ing  the  hours  and  hours  they've  used  it,  but 
so  far  there  haven't  been  enough  of  these 
aficionados  to  make  the  enterprise  a  money¬ 
maker. 

While  The  Games  Network  is  attacking 
the  home  market  through  cable,  a  whole  slew 
of  companies  are  getting  ready  to  attack 
through  the  telephone  lines. 

Control  Video  Corporation's  (CVC) 
GameLine  was  created  by  William  von  Meis- 


ter,  founder  of  the  Source,  like  the  Source, 
GameLine  requires  a  television  set,  a  tele¬ 
phone,  and  a  modem.  Consumers  who  al¬ 
ready  own  an  Atari  VCS  or  a  compatible 
video  game  console  can  purchase  the  Game- 
Line  Master  Module  (the  modem)  and  have 
access  to  the  large  library  of  4K  games  cur¬ 
rently  available  for  the  Atari  2600. 

The  Master  Module  should  sell  for 
around  sixty  dollars,  and  a  one-time  mem¬ 
bership  fee  of  fifteen  dollars  will  be  charged 
when  members  first  connect  to  the  system. 
Among  other  things,  that  fifteen  dollars  will 
get  you  a  year's  free  subscription  to  Game- 
Liner  magazine,  a  regularly  published  listing 
of  games  available  on  the  system  that  in¬ 
cludes  instructions  for  the  new  games  intro¬ 
duced  each  month. 

GameLine  offers  six  games  a  month.  Once 
a  user  has  entered  a  personal  I.D.  number 
and  game  selection,  it's  a  matter  of  dialing  up 
the  service  with  the  Master  Module  (a  local 
call  from  a  major  metropolitan  area;  toll-free 
from  other  locations).  Currently,  each  game 
play  session  (multiple  plays  of  a  game)  costs 
one  dollar. 

Like  the  folks  at  The  Games  Network,  the 
CVC  organizers  hope  to  deliver  much  more 
than  games  in  the  future.  Soon,  the  company 
should  be  marketing  modems  that  will  plug 
into  the  game  I/O  port  of  most  home  com¬ 
puters  and  will  deliver  true  computer  games. 
Eventually  the  company  will  offer  a  whole 
line  (pun  intended)  of  services,  with  self-ex¬ 
planatory  names  like  MailLine,  SportsLine, 
StockLine,  NewsLine,  InfoLine,  and 
BankLine. 

Coleco  and  AT&T  have  announced  that 
they  are  jointly  developing  a  game  service. 
The  project  is  similar  to  GameLine— games 
are  downloaded  by  modem  into  personal 
computers  or  video-game  systems.  Coleco 
will  supply  the  game  software. 

Atari  is  readying  a  low-cost  modem  for 
use  with  its  computers  and  game  machines. 
The  telecommunications  services  the  com¬ 
pany  plans  to  offer,  if  any,  have  not  yet  been 
announced. 

Undoubtedly  many  more  schemes  will 
surface  in  the  new  year.  The  race  to  bring  tele¬ 
communications  to  the  home  is  on.  The  win¬ 
ner  of  the  race — if  there  is  one  clear 
winner— will  likely  be  the  group  that  hits 
upon  the  way  to  make  it  as  easy  as  possible 
for  consumers  to  acquire  and  use  a  system. 
Televisions  wouldn't  sell  in  the  tens  of  mil¬ 
lions  if  consumers  had  to  thread  videotapes 
into  players  and  run  prime  time  programs 
themselves. 

*Tm  tired  of  playing  Zork,  Henry.  The 
set's  all  yours. " 

"I'm  tired  of  reading  magazines.  I  think  III 
do  our  finances.  Switch  the  channel  for  me , 
please. "  DH 


276 


SOftClIk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


PCI  FOR  TH  ™ 


If  you  want  total  control  over  your  IBM®  Personal  Computer ...  If  you  are  interested  in 
graphics,  games,  communications,  robotics,  data  acquisition,  or  process  con¬ 
trol  . . .  you  should  be  using  FORTH! 


Compatible  with  PC/XT, 
COMPAQ,  and  all  hard  disks 


Versions  available  for 
PC-DOS  1.1  and  2.0, 
CP/M-86®,  Concurrent  CP/M 


Quarterly  Newsletter 


Inexpensive  Updates 


Uses  memory  mapped  video 
for  blinding  fast  displays! 


NEW!  Animation  Support 
and  Turtle  Graphics 


83-Standard  Version 
available  Sept.  ’83. 


PC/FORTH™ .  $100.00 

Includes  interpreter/compiler  with  virtual  memory  and 
background  multi-tasking,  full  screen  editor,  assembler, 
many  demonstration  programs,  and  170  page  manual. 
Upgrade  to  PC/FORTH  +  available. 

PC/FORTH  +  ™ .  $250.00 

Allows  creation  of  FORTH  programs  up  to  1  megabyte 
in  size.  Upgrade  from  basic  PC/FORTH  available. 

FORTH  Cross  Compiler .  $300.00 

Choose  target  microprocessor  from  Z-80,  8080, 
8086/88,  IBM  PC,  LSI-11,  68000,  6502,  Z-8,  1802. 

Programmer’s  Package  #1 .  $250.00 

PC/FORTH,  Advanced  Graphics,  Symbolic  Debugger, 
Cross  Reference  Utility,  and  “Starting  FORTH”. 


•  FORTH  is  interactive  and  conversational 
like  BASIC,  but  twenty  times  faster. 

•  FORTH  programs  are  highly  structured, 
modular,  and  easy  to  maintain. 

•  FORTH  gives  you  direct  control  over  all 
interrupts,  memory  locations,  and  i/o  ports. 

•  Full  access  to  DOS  files  and  functions. 

•  Your  application  programs  can  be  compiled 
into  turnkey  COM  files  and  distributed  with 
no  license  fee. 

•  Cross  Compilers  available  for  ROM’ed  or 
disk  based  applications  on  most  popular 
microprocessors. 


DEMO  Disk .  $5.00 

Requires  graphics  card 

Extension  Packages 

Advanced  Color  Graphics .  $100.00 

Intel  8087  Support .  100.00 

Software  Floating  Point .  100.00 

Interactive  Symbolic  Debugger .  100.00 

PC/GEN™  Custom  Character  Sets .  50.00 

PC/TERM  for  Smartmodem .  60.00 

QTF+  Editor/Screen  Formatter .  100.00 

Curry  FORTH  Programming  Aids .  150.00 

Cross  Reference  Utility .  25.00 

Hierarchical  File  Manager .  50.00 

B+  Tree  Index  Manager .  125.00 

B+  Tree  File  and  Index  Manager .  200.00 

Intel  8087  Processor .  $250.00 

“Starting  FORTH”  tutorial .  $16.00 


PC/FORTH  requires  48  kbytes  RAM  and  1  disk  drive,  Cross  Compilers  require  64  kbytes  RAM.  PC/FORTH  +  requires  128  kbytes  RAM. 
Prices  include  shipping  by  UPS  or  first  class  mail  within  USA  and  Canada.  California  residents  add  appropriate  sales  tax.  Master  Charge  and 
Visa  accepted.  We  also  sell  FORTH’s  for  8080,  Z-80,  8086/88  (including  Tl  Professional,  Zenith  Z-100,  and  DEC  Rainbow),  and  68000 
based  microcomputers. 


Laboratory  Microsystems  Incorporated 

4147  Beethoven  Street,  Los  Angeles ,  CA  90066 
Phone  credit  card  orders  to  (213)  306-7412 


Trademarks: 

IBM — International  Business  Machines  Corp. 

CP/M— Digital  Research  tnc. 

PC/FORTH  +  and  PC/GEN— Laboratory  Microsystems  Inc. 


AS  GOOD  AS  POWERTEXT? 


QUESTIONS  TO  ASK  YOUR 
SOFTWARE  SUPPLIER 
BEFORE  HE  SELLS  YOU  A 
WORD  PROCESSING  SYSTEM 
FOR  YOUR  IBM  PC. 

Ask  a  computer  products  dealer 
for  word  processing  software,  and 
chances  are  he’ll  try  to  sell  you 
Wordstar. 

It’s  a  pretty  good  system.  Lots  of 
people  use  it.  And  besides,  he’s  got 
it  in  his  inventory,  and  you  can 
take  it  home  with  you  right  now. 

But  before  you  settle  for  Word¬ 
star,  remember  that — whatever 
system  you  choose — you’ll  be 
using  it  for  a  long  time.  So  your 
decision  should  be  based  on  sys¬ 
tem  performance — not  what  the 
dealer  happens  to  have  on  hand. 

That’s  why  you  should  look 
into  PowerText. 

Quite  simply,  PowerText 
will  do  far  more  for  you  than 
Wordstar. 

We  realize  that’s  a  very  tough 
claim.  But  the  Wordstar  users 
who’ve  switched  to  PowerText 
will  tell  you  it’s  true.  And  if  you’ll 
read  on,  we’ll  give  you  some  key 
questions  to  ask  your  dealer: 

Ask  if  Wordstar  automatically 
styles  your  copy  for  any  kind 
of  document  you  write.  Can  you 
tell  Wordstar,  “This  is  a  letter,”  and 
then  get  a  perfect  letter,  with  the 
date,  name  and  address,  salutation, 
and  closing  exactly  where  you 
want  them  to  be — automatically? 

Does  Wordstar  produce  memos, 
reports,  presentations,  and  scripts 
in  precisely  the  formats  you  want 
without  your  ever  having  to  worry 
about  where  the  words  go  on 
the  paper? 

Well,  Wordstar  doesn  't  do  those 
things  for  you.  But  PowerText  does, 

That  means  with  PowerText 
you  can  concentrate  on  what 
you’re  writing,  not  on  printed 
style.  You  always  get  a  beautiful, 
perfectly  formatted  document — 
automatically. 


Just  think  of  how  much  time  and 
effort  these  remarkable  capabilities 
will  save  you.  It’s  almost  like  dictat¬ 
ing  to  your  computer. 

PowerText  gives  you  automatic 
margins.  Indents.  Spacing.  Title 
page.  Envelope  or  label. 

Automatic  justification.  Cen¬ 
tering.  Variable  pitch.  Pagination. 
Table  of  contents. 

And  truly  intelligent  page  breaks. 
(You’ll  never  end  up  with  “Yours 
truly,”  all  by  itself  on  the  last  page 
of  your  letter.) 

And  an  enormously  useful 
feature  that  automatically 
indents  and  numbers  for  you 
when  you  write  numbered  par¬ 
agraphs — a  great  time-saver  when 
you’re  doing  outlines,  reports,  or 
questionnaires. 

Plus  columnar  capabilities  so 
sophisticated  and  flexible  they  can 
handle  just  about  any  problem  you 
can  think  up. 

Ask  if  Wordstar  gives  you  all 
these  features.  (It  doesn’t.) 

Of  course,  both  PowerText  and 
Wordstar  give  you  complete  edit¬ 
ing  capabilities.  All  good  word  pro¬ 
cessing  systems  do. 

But  PowerText  gives  you  built- 
in  form  letter  capability.  With 
Wordstar,  you’ll  need  to  buy  the 
Mailmerge®  system  to  produce 
form  letters. 

And  PowerText  gives  you  auto¬ 
matic  headers  and  footers.  And 
boxed  copy.  And  print  macros. 
And  automatic  footnote  numbers. 

And  boilerplate  inclusion.  And 
vertical  and  horizontal  border 
lines.  And  132-character  lines. 

And  superscripts  and  subscripts. 

With  PowerText  there’s  no 
limit  to  document  length.  And 
PowerText  accommodates  a  full 
25  percent  more  data  per  disk  than 
Wordstar  (or  standard  IBM 
software). 

PowerText  is  a  straight¬ 
forward,  easy-to-learn, 
easy-to-use  system.  You’ll  mas¬ 
ter  it  quickly  with  our  superb  new 
10-lesson  tutorial.  You  get  a  com- 


WORDSTAR  and  MAILMERGE  are  trademarks  of  MicroPro  International  Corp. 


plete  reference  manual,  too. 

PowerText  is  a  run-time,  boot¬ 
able  system.  It  requires  at  least  64K 
of  memory,  two  disk  drives,  and  a 
printer.  It  supports  both  serial  and 
parallel  printer  interfaces, 
extended  memory,  and  RAM  disk. 

And,  oh  yes,  be  sure  to  ask  your 
dealer  about  Wordstar’s  warranty. 
(It  doesn’t  have  one.) 

PowerText  does,  and  it’s  very 
simple:  The  system  is  warranted 
for  a  full  five  years.  Should  it  ever 
fail  to  perform  as  specified,  Beaman 
Porter,  Inc.  will  fix  it  at  no  charge. 

If  you  decide  PowerText  is  the 
right  system  for  you,  you  may  find 
your  dealer  doesn’t  have  it  in 
stock.  But  he  can  get  it  for  you,  and 
quickly.  Just  have  him  call  us  at 
(914)  967-3504. 

Or  if  you  wish,  you  can  order 
directly  from  Beaman  Porter  right 
now,  using  the  coupon  below. 

If  you  have  any  questions 
about  PowerText,  by  all  means 
call  us.  We’re  always  available  to 
give  you  expert  help  and  advice. 
With  Beaman  Porter,  service  and 
support  are  always  as  near  as 
your  phone. 


COMPLETE  POWERTEXT  SYSTEM 
FOR  IBM  PC:  $399- 
TUTORIAL/MANUAL  ALONE:  $25. 


BEAMAN  PORTER,  INC. 

vy^  High  Performance  Computer  Products 

Pleasant  Ridge  Road.  Harrison.  NY  10528  (914)  967-5504 


I - 1 

!  BEAMAN  PORTER,  INC.  ! 

I  Pleasant  Ridge  Road,  Harrison,  NY  10528  I 

j  □  Send _ complete  PowerTfext  system(s)  for 

I  IBM  PC:  @  S399  (prepaid).  , 

1  □  Send _ PowerText  tutorial/manuai(s)  only, 

@  $25  (prepaid). 

I  (NY  residents  add  appropriate  sales  lax.)  I 

□  My  check  or  money  order  for  S _ enclosed.  [ 

I  Or  bill  S _ to  my:  I 

1  □  Mastercard  □  Visa  I 

j  (Mastercard:  list  4  digits  above  your  name: _ ).  1 

j  Card  No. _ Exp.  Date _  j 

j  Signature _ Date _  1 

j  Name _ _ _ _  1 

1  Street  I 


AShow  of  Shows.  The  1984  International 
Winter  Consumer  Electronics  Show  (CES) 
will  invade  Las  Vegas  January  7-10.  More 
than  twelve  hundred  exhibitors  will  lay 
waste  to  more  than  seven  hundred  thousand 
square  feet  of  exhibit  space  in  the  Las  Vegas 
Convention  Center,  the  Convention  Center 
annex,  the  Hilton  Hotel,  and  the  Riviera  Ho¬ 
tel.  An  industry  trade  show  not  open  to  the 
general  public,  CES  will  nonetheless  attract 
upward  of  seventy  thousand  attendees. 
APersonal  Robot  Get-together.  The  first  In¬ 
ternational  Personal  Robotics  Congress  will 
be  held  April  13-15,  1984,  in  Albuquerque, 
New  Mexico.  Two  days  of  the  gathering  will 
feature  technical  sessions  on  the  personal  ro¬ 
botics  field,  covering  such  topics  as  technol¬ 
ogy,  control  languages,  definitions  and 
terminology,  legal  aspects  of  robots,  social 
implications,  marketing,  and  training.  An 
exhibit  area  will  be  open  to  the  public  all 
three  days.  The  organizers  of  the  affair  are 
encouraging  people  who  have  built  their  own 
robots  to  enter  their  creations  in  various 
planned  competitions  during  the  congress. 
The  personal  robot  industry  is  still  in  its  early 
childhood  and  many  exciting  designs  and  in¬ 
novations  are  coming  from  hobbyists.  The 
congress  is  hoping  to  bring  together  industry 
and  individual  robot  experimenters.  For  more 
information,  contact  the  International  Personal 
Robotics  Congress  in  Lakewood,  Colorado. 
ALap  Robot.  Gainesville,  Florida-based 
Bingel  Robotics  has  brought  out  the  RMP 
2000 — a  lightweight,  mobile,  tanklike  ro¬ 
bot— that  is  compatible  with  the  Timex/ Sin¬ 
clair  1000,  ZX  81,  and  ZX  80  computers.  The 
RMP  2000  is  programmable  with  Basic  and 


includes  sample  programs  for  exploring  cer¬ 
tain  artificial  intelligence  experiments. 
Equipped  with  two  dc  drive  motors,  the 
RMP  2000  basically  moves  around  at  your 
command  and  is  meant  to  be  an  educational 
robotic  device.  The  RMP  2000  weighs  four 
pounds  and  can  carry  a  maximum  of  four 
pounds  on  its  flat  top.  It  can  travel  both  for¬ 


ward  and  backward  at  a  top  speed  of  thirty- 
five  feet  per  minute. 

AOld  Man  of  the  Sea.  Proteus  Robot  Corpo¬ 
ration,  based  in  Niwot,  Colorado,  has  devel¬ 
oped  a  "black  box" — a  general-purpose 
process  controller— designed  to  run  with  S- 
100-style  microcomputers.  Called  Proteus, 
the  unit  is  meant  to  be  an  interchangeable 
brain  that  will  fit  in  a  line  of  robot  "shells" 
that  the  company  is  planning  to  produce. 
The  first  robot  shell,  called  Koodar,  is  sched¬ 
uled  to  be  released  late  this  year  or  early  next. 
Koodar  will  be  mobile  and  low  to  the  ground 
with  a  large  flat  surface  on  top.  Taking  ad¬ 
vantage  of  the  Proteuss  Motorola  68000  mi¬ 
croprocessor,  Koodar  will  be  able  to  perform 
such  tasks  as  vacuuming  rugs  (with  a  piggy¬ 
back  vacuum  cleaner  on  top).  The  makers 
say  it  can  also  polish  floors  and  carry  loads 
from  point  to  point  in  factories.  The  com¬ 
pany  says  its  investigating  home  security  ap¬ 
plications. 

AEven  More  Robot  News.  RB  Robot  Corpo¬ 
ration,  makers  of  the  RB5X  Intelligent  Ro¬ 
bot,  have  signed  an  OEM  agreement  with  the 
German  robot  company,  Rainbow.  The 
agreement  calls  for  the  Hamburg,  West  Ger¬ 
many-based  Rainbow  to  purchase  electron¬ 
ics  and  voice  assemblies  from  RB  Robot, 
which  is  based  in  Golden,  Colorado.  The 
parts  will  be  used  to  begin  the  manufac¬ 
turing  of  Toby,  a  home  robot  that  resembles 
RB5X  in  both  design  and  function.  Toby  will 
have  the  same  RS-232  serial  interface  capa¬ 
bility  of  RB5X,  as  well  as  most  other  features 
of  the  original,  but  it  will  have  a  slightly 
different  exterior. 

AIndustrial  Strength  Control.  AT&T  Infor¬ 
mation  Systems  and  Bailey  Controls,  a  divi¬ 
sion  of  Babcock  &  Wilcox,  have  announced 
an  agreement  to  cooperate  in  linking  commu¬ 
nications  technology  with  process  control 
systems,  numerically  controlled  machines, 
mainframe  computers,  engineering  automa¬ 
tion  systems,  and  personal  computers.  The 
joint  venture  was  formed  to  serve  the  grow¬ 
ing  need  in  the  industrial  marketplace  for  fac¬ 
torywide,  optimized,  computer  control  of 
automation  processes,  communications,  and 
energy  management.  According  to  Bailey 
Controls  president  M.A.  "Bud"  Keyes,  "We 
see  an  emerging  trend  in  the  industrial  mar¬ 
ketplace  where,  instead  of  distinct  processes 
being  controlled  separately,  the  entire  facility 
is  optimized  for  low  production  cost,  energy 
conservation,  and  high  product  quality." 
AFrance  Deals  Out  Smart  Cards.  Intelmati- 
que,  the  international  marketing  arm  of  the 
French  telecommunications  administration, 
announced  that  the  French  Ministry  of  Post 
and  Telecommunications  will  issue  one  and  a 
half  million  Multi-Service  Smart  Cards  in 
1984.  The  smart  card  is  the  size  and  shape  of 
a  credit  card  and  has  one  or  more  embedded 


>$l 


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SOftCilk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


279 


Drive 

Alignment! 

TM 

ReadiScope 

ReadiScope  is  a  comprehensive 
diagnostic  program  that  analyzes  the 
current  status  of  a  diskette  drive. 

A  drive  can  be  tested  in  seconds 
without  removal.  Adjustments  to  head, 
spindle  hub  alignment,  and  rotational 
speed  can  be  made  in  minutes  without 
special  equipment. 

■  Floppy  drive  testing  and 
alignment 

■  No  special  equipment 
needed 

■  Drive  can  be  tested  while 
installed: 

-Under  normal  operating 
conditions 

-Saves  removal  time 

■  Results  presented  graphically 

■  Fast  - 1  minute  for  general 
checkout 

■  Works  with  single  or  double 
sided  drives 

■  Ideal  for  use  by: 

-retail  stores 
-repair  shops 
-multi-PC  user’s 
-PC  clubs 

-users  with  critical  data 

■  Includes  special 
diagnostic  diskette 

Requires  48K  IBM  PC  with  one  op¬ 
erating  drive.  Uses  monochrome  or 
graphics  display.  $295  including 
special  diagnostic  diskette. 


Call  about  our  other  programs  for  the 
PC: 

•  ReadiWriter 

Powerful  text  formatter  that  is 
compatible  with  GML  and  SCRIPT 

•  List  &  Letters 

Mailing  list  option  for  ReadiWriter 

•  ReadiTerm 

Flexible  communications  program 


Visa,  Mastercard  or  MO.  Add  $3  for 
shipping.  In  CT,  add  7.5%  tax 

Call  203-431-3521  or  send  your  order 
now  to: 

ReadiWare  Systems ,  Inc . 

Box  680B,  W.  Redding ,  CT  06896 


computer  chips  that  are  programmable  and 
capable  of  storing  data.  According  to  In- 
telmatique,  the  Multi-Service  Smart  Cards 
will  have  four  uses:  pay  telephoning,  tele- 
banking  and  telepayment  for  products  or¬ 
dered  electronically  by  videotex,  pay 
television,  and  as  payment  mechanisms  for 
delegates  attending  conferences  and  special 
events  at  permanent  exhibition/convention 
sites.  In  addition,  the  cards  will  also  be  used 
by  some  savings  account  customers  of  CCP 
(French  postal  bank)  and  the  Post  Savings 
Bank  for  transferring  funds  and  paying  bills. 
The  smart  cards  will  allow  customers  of  CCP 
and  members  of  Carte  Bleue  to  exchange 
services.  For  videotex  applications,  the  smart 
card  is  compatible  with  the  Minitel  termi¬ 
nal — a  standalone  terminal  used  in  France's 
electronic  telephone  directory  and  Teletel  vi¬ 
deotex  services. 

A2001:  A  Compact  Disk  Odyssey?  Technol¬ 
ogy  Opportunity  Conference  presents  the 
First  International  Conference  on  the  Future 
of  Optical  Memories,  Videodiscs,  and  Com¬ 
pact  Disks  to  the  Year  2000  at  San  Francisco's 
Sir  Francis  Drake  Hotel  December  5-7.  The 
conference  will  specifically  address  such  is¬ 
sues  as  the  future  needs  of  end  users  vis-a-vis 
optical  memory,  interactive  videodiscs,  and 
compact  disk  systems.  A  series  of  talks  and 
presentations  by  experts  in  the  industry  are 
planned  for  the  three-day  affair.  For  more  in¬ 
formation,  contact  the  Technology  Opportu¬ 
nity  Conference  headquarters  in  San 
Francisco,  California. 

A  Twisting  Cheese  around  the  Clock.  The 
word  from  Budapest,  Hungary,  is  that  Emo 
Rubik— inventor  of  that  maddening,  addicting 
Cube — is  about  to  unleash  two  new  mind- 
teasers,  Rubiks  Cheese  and  Rubik's  Secret. 
Rubik's  Cheese,  a  sort  of  multihued  Gouda 
that  works  on  the  same  principle  as  the  Cube, 
should  be  available  for  international  market¬ 
ing  early  next  year.  Rubik's  Secret  is  still  just 
that— a  secret.  A  teacher  at  the  Academy  of 
Applied  Arts  in  Budapest,  Rubik  is  now  a 
millionaire  in  a  country  where  the  average 
wage  is  the  equivalent  of  $100  a  month.  At 
home,  his  success  is  something  of  an  embar¬ 
rassment  for  the  Communist  government,  al¬ 
though  sometimes  he  is  a  source  of  national 
pride.  Because  of  patent  laws,  taxes  on  his 
royalties  are  limited  to  20  percent.  In  a  land 
where  personal  success  and  individual  enter¬ 
prise  are  still  not  officially  encouraged,  39- 
year-old  Rubik  is  in  a  puzzling  situation. 

A  Stockhunter:  Adventures  in  the  Financial 
Zone.  If  you  missed  the  latest  rash  of  3-D 
films  this  summer,  most  of  which  were  criti¬ 
cally  lambasted  and  fell  flat  at  the  box  office, 
cheer  up.  There's  always  3-D  stock.  View- 
Master  International,  purveyors  of  hand¬ 
held  3-D  slide  viewers  for  the  past  forty-five 
years,  has  made  its  initial  public  offering — 


850,000  shares  of  stock,  each  equipped  with 
a  special  pair  of  viewing  glasses.  The  3-D  cer¬ 
tificates  depict  a  globe,  View-Master's  logo, 
and  the  company  name  in  red  and  blue.  Ac¬ 
cording  to  company  officials,  the  3-D  effect  is 
fairly  flat,  so  you  can  still  read  the  certificate 
without  the  special  glasses. 

AScotch  Buy.  A  century  ago,  the  first  Indus¬ 
trial  Revolution  thrived  in  Scotland,  where 
coal,  steel,  and  shipbuilding  were  the  big  in¬ 
dustries.  Now  the  Central  Lowlands  of 
Scotland  are  becoming  the  site  of  another 
revolution,  as  the  promises  of  the  previous 
turnaround  wane.  In  the  last  year  or  so,  the 
area  in  Scotland  from  Ayr  on  the  Irish  Sea  to 
Glasgow  on  the  Clyde  to  Edinburgh  on  the 
Firth  of  Forth  to  Dundee  on  the  Firth  of  Tay 
has  become  known  as  Silicon  Glen.  At  last 
count,  some  270  high-tech  companies  are 
pumping  out  a  stream  of  computers,  com¬ 
puter  components,  and  programs.  American 
giants  like  IBM,  Motorola,  NCR,  and 
Hewlett-Packard  have  operations  in  the  glen, 
and  Nippon  Electric  has  announced  plans  to 
build  a  new  semiconductor  plant  in  the  town 
of  Livingstone,  west  of  Edinburgh.  Econom¬ 
ics  is  the  main  reason  companies  seek  out  the 
glen.  Operating  costs  are  about  one-third 
lower  than  in  the  United  States.  With  the  de¬ 
cline  of  the  coal  and  shipbuilding  industries 
causing  high  unemployment  in  the  area,  the 
influx  of  high-tech  companies  couldn't  have 
come  at  a  better  time. 

A"I  Married  a  Washing  Machine."  DeVon 
Smith  is  a  junk  dealer  in  Ell  wood  City,  Penn¬ 
sylvania.  Recently,  the  Ell  wood  City  Cham¬ 
ber  of  Commerce  asked  Smith  to  create  three 
"robots"  for  a  special  fall  promotion.  Two  of 
the  "robots"  were  to  be  wed,  while  the  third 
acted  as  best  man.  Smith  bought  some  spray 
paint  and  small  flashing  lights  and  then 
raided  his  stock  of  junk.  Jupiter  Salvage,  the 
groom,  was  given  a  washing  machine  agita¬ 
tor  for  a  head,  a  washing  machine  tub  for  a 
body,  vacuum  cleaner  hoses  for  arms,  sewer 
pipes  for  legs,  and  Smith's  own  boots  for 
shoes.  The  bride,  Venus  Scrappe,  wore  a 
used  lace  curtain  for  a  skirt  and  matching 
veil;  a  water  softener  device  placed  on  a  dish¬ 
washer  basket  and  a  four-legged  stool  served 
as  her  body.  The  two  robots  were  married  on 
October  1,  with  Martian  I  as  best  man.  After 
honeymooning  in  Pittsburgh's  swankest 
public  dump,  the  newlyweds  settled  down  in 
an  auto-wrecking  plant  in  New  Jersey. 
Happy  holidays!  ▲ 

Editor 

David  Hunter 

Contributors 

Roe  R.  Adams  III,  Dasher, 
Dopey ;  Daffy,  and  Snoozer 


280 


softolk 


by  Ray  Duncan 


T 


The  TALK  Utility 


I  I  his  month's  pro- 

*|gf  gram,  named 

TALK,  is  a  ''dumb 
terminal  emulator" 
that  can  be  used  on  any  IBM  Personal  Com¬ 
puter  equipped  with  the  Asynchronous  Com¬ 
munications  Card.  It  allows  your  pc  to 
function  as  a  terminal  for  a  modem  or  another 
computer  system.  TALK  is  a  very  unsophisti¬ 
cated  communications  program  and  doesn't 
support  interrupts  or  cursor  addressing,  but  in 
combination  with  a  Hayes  Smartmodem  it  is 
adequate  for  just  talking  to  your  S-100  micro¬ 
computer  or  to  one  of  the  dial-up  bulletin 
boards  or  on-line  database  services.  Even 
without  interrupt-handling  capabilities,  it 
functions  well  at  speeds  of  up  to  2400  baud. 

How  To  Use  TALK.  TALK  will  not  function 
properly  if  the  optional  ANSI  video  driver  is 
loaded,  so  make  sure  that  the  line  device  ~ 
ansi.sys  is  not  present  in  the  Config.sys  file  on 
your  boot  disk.  Before  loading  the  program 
TALK,  you  should  use  the  PC-DOS  mode 
command  to  initialize  your  serial  port  for  the 
desired  baud  rate,  parity,  word  length,  and 
number  of  stop  bits.  You'll  find  a  detailed  dis¬ 
cussion  of  each  of  these  parameters  in  your 
PC-DOS  manual,  but  suffice  it  to  say  that  the 
following  command  line  will  set  up  a  Hayes 
Smartmodem  300  properly  for  use  with 
TALK: 

A>MODE  COM 1 : 300, E, 7,1 
This  command  line  directs  PC-DOS  to  pro¬ 
gram  the  first  Asynchronous  Communications 
Adapter  for  300-baud,  even-parity,  seven-bit 
characters,  and  one  stop  bit.  Of  course,  you 
should  substitute  Com2:  for  Coml:  if  your 
Smartmodem  is  hooked  to  the  second  serial 
port.  Note  that  when  you  first  turn  on  your 
computer,  PC-DOS  automatically  initializes 
the  serial  port  to  2400  baud,  no  parity,  one  stop 
bit,  and  an  eight-bit  word,  so  if  by  some  re¬ 
mote  chance  those  settings  are  okay  for  your 
modem  you  can  skip  the  mode  command. 

Now,  you  are  ready  to  communicate  with 
the  remote  system.  Simply  enter: 

A>TALK 

The  TALK  program  will  check  to  make  sure 


your  modem  is  hooked  up  and  turned  on.  If  it 
isn't,  TALK  will  display  the  message  "Check 
your  modem"  and  return  you  to  PC-DOS.  If 
the  modem  status  is  okay,  the  screen  will  be 
cleared  and  flipped  into  reverse  video  (black 
on  white).  The  reverse  video  will  always  serve 
to  remind  you  while  you're  using  TALK  that 
you  aren't  giving  commands  to  PC-DOS  or  to 
a  program  running  on  the  IBM  pc,  but  rather 
to  a  program  running  on  a  remote  system. 

If  you  are  using  a  Smartmodem,  you  can 
give  a  "dial"  command  directly  to  the  modem 
once  TALK  is  active.  TALK  will  establish  the 
connection  for  you  and,  when  the  remote  sys¬ 
tem  has  been  reached,  will  display  the  message 
"CONNECT."  For  example,  to  set  the  commu¬ 
nications  parameters,  invoke  TALK,  and  dial 
up  the  computer  bulletin  board  at  (415)  538- 
3580,  you  would  follow  the  sequence: 

A>MODE  COMl:300,E,7,l 

A)  TALK 

AT  DT  1  415  538  3580 

After  you  see  the  word  "CONNECT,"  you  are 
on-line  to  the  bulletin  board  software.  Your  pc 
is  now  functioning  as  a  very  expensive,  classy- 
Iooking,  thirty-character-per-second  Teletype! 

If  you  are  using  an  acoustic  modem  instead 
of  one  of  the  direct-connect  intelligent  mo¬ 
dems,  you  must  dial  up  the  remote  system,  get 
the  answering  tone,  and  put  the  handset  into 
the  earpieces  on  the  modem  before  you  invoke 
TALK.  Otherwise  you  will  get  the  "Check 
your  modem"  warning  message. 

When  you've  finished  talking  to  the  remote 
system,  just  push  the  escape  key.  The  screen 
will  be  cleared  and  reset  to  normal  video 
mode.  TALK  will  then  display  the  message 
"Goodbye"  and  return  control  to  PC-DOS. 
Warning:  Leaving  TALK  does  not  command 
the  modem  to  hang  up  the  line.  If  you  don't 
turn  off  the  modem,  it  will  maintain  the  con¬ 
nection  and  run  your  phone  bill  up  unmerci¬ 
fully. 

Outline  of  the  Program  TALK.  The  general 
plan  of  the  TALK  utility  is  as  follows: 

1.  Save  the  address  for  the  final  return  to 
PC-DOS  on  the  stack. 

2.  Make  sure  the  modem  is  on-line.  If  it 


isn't,  print  an  error  message  and  exit.  Other¬ 
wise  clear  the  display  and  set  it  to  reverse 
video. 

3.  Check  to  see  if  a  character  has  been  typed 
on  the  pc  keyboard.  If  none  has  been  typed,  go 
to  step  5. 

4.  If  a  character  has  been  typed  and  it  was 
an  escape  key,  go  to  step  7.  Otherwise,  send  the 
character  out  the  serial  port  to  the  remote  sys¬ 
tem.  If  the  system  is  running  in  half-duplex, 
also  send  the  character  to  the  pc's  video  display 
(this  will  be  discussed  in  more  detail  below). 

5.  Check  to  see  if  an  incoming  character 
from  the  remote  system  is  ready  on  the  serial 
port.  If  no  character  is  there,  go  to  step  3. 

6.  Read  the  character  from  the  serial  port 
and  send  it  to  the  IBM  pc's  video  display,  then 
go  to  step  3. 

7.  The  program  reaches  this  step  when  the 
operator  pushes  escape  on  the  IBM  pc's  key¬ 
board.  The  display  is  cleared  and  set  back  to 
normal  video  mode.  TALK  prints  "Goodbye" 
and  returns  control  to  PC-DOS. 

Structure  of  TALK.  Like  the  two  programs 
in  last  month's  column,  TALK  is  written  for 
assembly  into  an  .Exe  file.  It  consists  of  a  Code 
Segment  containing  all  the  executable  machine 
instructions  for  the  program,  a  Data  Segment 
holding  various  variables  and  text  messages, 
and  a  Stack  Segment  that's  used  as  a  scratch 
area  by  the  machine's  PUSH,  POR  and  CALL 
instructions. 

Within  the  Code  Segment,  there  is  a  "main" 
procedure  named  TALK,  which  can  be  viewed 
as  the  master  control  for  this  program.  There 
are  also  a  number  of  small  subroutines  that 
handle  character  input  /output  between  the 
TALK  program  and  the  pc's  keyboard,  video 
display,  and  serial  communications  adapter. 
These  smaller  subroutines  are  somewhat  more 
complicated  than  is  actually  necessary  for  suc¬ 
cessful  operation  of  TALK,  but  they  have  been 
designed  to  be  general  in  nature  so  you  can  eas¬ 
ily  incorporate  them  into  other  programs  of 
your  own  design. 

The  essential  subroutines  are  eight  in  num¬ 
ber  and  have  names  that  correspond  to  their 
function,  to  wit: 


for  the  IBM.  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


281 


COM  —  STAT.  Get  the  status  of  the  com¬ 
munications  port  (in  other  words,  see  if  a  char¬ 
acter  is  waiting  to  be  input). 

COM  — IN.  Read  (input)  a  character  from 
the  communications  port. 

COM— OUT.  Write  (output)  a  character  to 
the  communications  port. 

PC  — STAT.  Get  the  status  of  the  pc's  key¬ 
board  (that  is,  check  to  see  if  a  key  has  been 
pressed). 

PC— IN.  Read  (input)  a  character  from  the 
pc's  keyboard 

PC— OUT  Write  (output)  a  character  to 
the  pc's  video  display. 

CLEAR.  Clear  the  screen  and  set  it  to  the 
desired  display  mode. 

HOME.  Put  the  cursor  in  the  upper  left  cor¬ 
ner,  known  as  the  "home  position." 

A  Closer  Look  at  TALK.  Over  the  past  few 
months,  this  column  has  presented  several 
short  utilities  as  a  means  of  illustrating  use  of 
the  various  ROM  BIOS  drivers  that  are  built 
into  the  IBM  pc.  This  month's  program,  no  ex¬ 
ception,  is  designed  to  show  you  how  to  ex¬ 
ploit  the  serial  port  driver  that's  present  in  the 
ROM. 

The  proper  name  of  the  ROM  driver  is 
RS232 — IO,  and  the  code  for  it  is  listed  on  page 
A-22  of  the  Technical  Reference  manual  ver¬ 
sion  2.0.  The  driver  provides  four  services:  It 


initializes  serial  port,  reads  serial  port  status, 
transmits  character  to  serial  port,  and  receives 
character  from  serial  port  (see  table  1).  This  is  a 
relatively  short,  simple  driver;  try  reading  the 
source  code  in  the  technical  manual  as  a  learn¬ 
ing  exercise;  it's  an  example  of  how  all  the 
ROM  BIOS  drivers  are  structured. 

Turning  now  to  the  internal  workings  of  the 
TALK  program,  we  encounter  several  com¬ 
mands  and  constructs  that  we  have  not  used  in 
previous  months'  columns.  On  line  3,  the  .LF- 
COND  statement  tells  the  assembler  to  list 
those  parts  of  the  source  code  that  are  not  actu¬ 
ally  assembled  because  a  conditional  statement 
has  been  evaluated  as  false.  Conditional  state¬ 
ments  are  extremely  handy  for  creating  pro¬ 
grams  that  can  be  assembled  for  different 
environments,  and  in  a  few  moments  we'll  see 
an  example  of  how  they  are  used. 

Lines  13  through  15  use  the  EQU  operator 
to  assign  symbolic  names  "cr",  "If",  and  "esc" 
to  the  corresponding  ASCII  codes;  these  in¬ 
structions  serve  only  to  make  the  assembly 
source  code  more  readable. 

Another  use  of  the  EQU  statement  is  shown 
in  lines  17  and  21.  Here  we  are  assigning  names 
to  values  we  are  likely  to  change  in  different 
assemblies  of  the  program.  By  equating  the 
real  value  to  a  symbolic  name  at  the  beginning 
of  the  program,  and  by  subsequently  referenc¬ 


ing  that  value  only  by  its  symbolic  name,  we 
make  it  much  easier  to  modify  the  program 
later. 

The  equate  in  line  17  creates  the  symbol 
ECHO,  which  is  used  in  a  conditional  state¬ 
ment  later.  ECHO  controls  whether  TALK  will 
be  assembled  to  communicate  with  a  full-du¬ 
plex  or  a  half-duplex  remote  system.  Full  du¬ 
plex  means  the  remote  system  "echoes,"  or 
returns,  a  copy  of  every  character  you  send  it; 
half  duplex  means  the  remote  system  echoes 
no  characters.  In  half  duplex,  TALK  must  send 
a  copy  of  each  character  you  type  to  the  IBM 
pc's  display  as  well  as  to  the  remote  system,  or 
you  won't  be  able  to  see  the  text  you're  enter¬ 
ing.  Almost  any  system  you're  likely  to  call 
these  days  will  be  full  duplex,  though;  so  for 
now  leave  this  equate  as  it  appears  in  the  list¬ 
ing. 

The  equate  in  line  21  specifies  which  serial 
port  your  modem  is  hooked  to.  The  value 
should  be  0  if  your  modem  is  on  Coml:  and  1 
if  it's  on  Com2:. 

The  SEGMENT  and  ENDP  statements  in 
lines  26  and  247  delimit  the  beginning  and  end 
of  the  Code  Segment,  as  discussed  last  month. 
The  Code  Segment  is  named  CSEG  in  this  ex¬ 
ample,  but  of  course  you  can  name  it  anything 
you  like.  The  ASSUME  command  in  line  28 
tells  the  assembler  which  parts  of  the  program 
the  various  Segment  Registers  will  point  to.  Be 
reminded  again  that  this  command  does  not 
actually  LOAD  the  Segment  Registers  with  the 
proper  values;  you  must  do  that  explicitly 
within  the  program  itself  (in  this  case,  the  SS 
and  CS  registers  are  set  up  correctly  by  PC- 
DOS  before  entry  to  TALK). 

Within  the  Code  Segment,  the  main  routine 
TALK  is  defined  by  the  PROC  and  ENDP 
statements  on  lines  30  and  123  respectively. 
The  main  communications  loop  is  contained 
within  lines  73  through  101.  The  logic  here  is 
quite  compact,  making  calls  to  the  various  out¬ 
side  routines  in  succession  in  order  to  obtain 
status  and  read  or  write  characters. 

Lines  84  through  90  are  particularly  inter¬ 
esting.  We  use  the  conditional  statement  IF 
ECHO  to  tell  the  assembler  whether  to  process 
the  subsequent  source  code  lines  up  to  the  next 
END  IF  statement.  If  the  symbol  ECHO  was 
equated  to  a  nonzero  value  in  line  17,  it  will  be 
evaluated  as  true,  and  lines  87,  88,  and  89  will 
be  assembled  into  executable  machine  code.  If 
ECHO  is  false,  lines  87  through  89  will  be  ig¬ 
nored.  In  fact,  if  we  hadn't  included  the  .LF- 
COND  statement  at  the  beginning  of  the 
program,  these  lines  wouldn't  even  have  ap¬ 
peared  on  the  listing.  You  can  read  more  about 
conditional  assembly  on  pages  5-44  to  5-47  of 
the  Macro  Assembler  manual,  although  you 
may  still  find  that  a  little  heavy  going  at  this 
stage. 

Lines  125  through  170  contain  the  three 
subroutines  to  access  the  ROM  BIOS's  serial 


Function  0— Initialize  Communications  Port 
Call  with: 

AH  =  0 

AL  =  initialization  parameter  (see  table  2) 

DX  =  communications  port  number  (0  or  1) 

Returns: 

AX  =  status  (see  table  3) 

Function  1 — Write  Character  to  Communications  Port 
Call  with: 

AH  =  1 
AL  =  character 

DX  =  communications  port  number  (0  or  1) 

Returns: 

AX  =  status  if  bit  15  is  not  set 

If  bit  15  is  set,  the  character  could  not  be  sent. 
Function  2 — Read  Character  from  Communications  Port 
Call  with: 

AH  =  2 

DX  =  communications  port  number  (0  or  1) 

Returns: 

AL  =  character 

AH  =  bit  7  set  if  serial  port  timed-out 

otherwise,  bits  1,  2,  3,  4,and  7  are  as 
described  in  status  request 
Function  3 — Status  Request 
Call  with: 

AH  —  3 

DX  =  communications  port  number  (0  or  1) 

Returns: 

AX  =  status 

Table  1:  Functions  available  from  the  ROM  BIOS  Serial  Port  driver 
through  software  interrupt  14H. 


282 


SOftalk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


1 

fm  1 

Jffj 

THE  RIGHT  TO  ASSEMBLE 

j>^J 

by  Ray  Duncan 

i  Tl 

The  TALK  Utility 

T 

1  his  month's  pro- 

il  f  gram,  named 

TALK,  is  a  "dumb 
terminal  emulator" 
that  can  be  used  on  any  IBM  Personal  Com¬ 
puter  equipped  with  the  Asynchronous  Com¬ 
munications  Card.  It  allows  your  pc  to 
function  as  a  terminal  for  a  modem  or  another 
computer  system.  TALK  is  a  very  unsophisti¬ 
cated  communications  program  and  doesn't 
support  interrupts  or  cursor  addressing,  but  in 
combination  with  a  Hayes  Smartmodem  it  is 
adequate  for  just  talking  to  your  S-100  micro¬ 
computer  or  to  one  of  the  dial-up  bulletin 
boards  or  on-line  database  services.  Even 
without  interrupt-handling  capabilities,  it 
functions  well  at  speeds  of  up  to  2400  baud. 

HowTo  Use  TALK.  TALK  will  not  function 
properly  if  the  optional  ANSI  video  driver  is 
loaded,  so  make  sure  that  the  line  device  = 
ansi.sys  is  not  present  in  the  Config.sys  file  on 
your  boot  disk.  Before  loading  the  program 
TALK,  you  should  use  the  PC-DOS  mode 
command  to  initialize  your  serial  port  for  the 
desired  baud  rate,  parity,  word  length,  and 
number  of  stop  bits.  You'll  find  a  detailed  dis¬ 
cussion  of  each  of  these  parameters  in  your 
PC-DOS  manual,  but  suffice  it  to  say  that  the 
following  command  line  will  set  up  a  Hayes 
Smartmodem  300  properly  for  use  with 
TALK: 

A > MODE  COM1:300,E,7,1 
This  command  line  directs  PC-DOS  to  pro¬ 
gram  the  first  Asynchronous  Communications 
Adapter  for  300-baud,  even-parity,  seven-bit 
characters,  and  one  stop  bit.  Of  course,  you 
should  substitute  Com2:  for  Coml:  if  your 
Smartmodem  is  hooked  to  the  second  serial 
port.  Note  that  when  you  first  turn  on  your 
computer,  PC-DOS  automatically  initializes 
the  serial  port  to  2400  baud,  no  parity,  one  stop 
bit,  and  an  eight-bit  word,  so  if  by  some  re¬ 
mote  chance  those  settings  are  okay  for  your 
modem  you  can  skip  the  mode  command. 

Now,  you  are  ready  to  communicate  with 
the  remote  system.  Simply  enter: 

A  >  TALK 

The  TALK  program  will  check  to  make  sure 


your  modem  is  hooked  up  and  turned  on.  If  it 
isn't,  TALK  will  display  the  message  "Check 
your  modem"  and  return  you  to  PC-DOS.  If 
the  modem  status  is  okay,  the  screen  will  be 
cleared  and  flipped  into  reverse  video  (black 
on  white).  The  reverse  video  will  always  serve 
to  remind  you  while  you're  using  TALK  that 
you  aren't  giving  commands  to  PC-DOS  or  to 
a  program  running  on  the  IBM  pc,  but  rather 
to  a  program  running  on  a  remote  system. 

If  you  are  using  a  Smartmodem,  you  can 
give  a  "dial"  command  directly  to  the  modem 
once  TALK  is  active.  TALK  will  establish  the 
connection  for  you  and,  when  the  remote  sys¬ 
tem  has  been  reached,  will  display  the  message 
"CONNECT."  For  example,  to  set  the  commu¬ 
nications  parameters,  invoke  TALK,  and  dial 
up  the  computer  bulletin  board  at  (415)  538- 
3580,  you  would  follow  the  sequence: 

A > MODE  COM1:300,E,7,1 

A > TALK 

AT  DT  1  415  538  3580 

After  you  see  the  word  "CONNECT,"  you  are 
on-line  to  the  bulletin  board  software.  Your  pc 
is  now  functioning  as  a  very  expensive,  classy- 
looking,  thirty-character-per-second  Teletype! 

If  you  are  using  an  acoustic  modem  instead 
of  one  of  the  direct-connect  intelligent  mo¬ 
dems,  you  must  dial  up  the  remote  system,  get 
the  answering  tone,  and  put  the  handset  into 
the  earpieces  on  the  modem  before  you  invoke 
TALK.  Otherwise  you  will  get  the  "Check 
your  modem"  warning  message. 

When  you've  finished  talking  to  the  remote 
system,  just  push  the  escape  key.  The  screen 
will  be  cleared  and  reset  to  normal  video 
mode.  TALK  will  then  display  the  message 
"Goodbye"  and  return  control  to  PC-DOS. 
Warning:  Leaving  TALK  does  not  command 
the  modem  to  hang  up  the  line.  If  you  don't 
turn  off  the  modem,  it  will  maintain  the  con¬ 
nection  and  run  your  phone  bill  up  unmerci¬ 
fully. 

Outline  of  the  Program  TALK.  The  general 
plan  of  the  TALK  utility  is  as  follows: 

1.  Save  the  address  for  the  final  return  to 
PC-DOS  on  the  stack. 

2.  Make  sure  the  modem  is  on-line.  If  it 


isn't,  print  an  error  message  and  exit.  Other¬ 
wise  clear  the  display  and  set  it  to  reverse 
video. 

3.  Check  to  see  if  a  character  has  been  typed 
on  the  pc  keyboard.  If  none  has  been  typed,  go 
to  step  5. 

4.  If  a  character  has  been  typed  and  it  was 
an  escape  key,  go  to  step  7.  Otherwise,  send  the 
character  out  the  serial  port  to  the  remote  sys¬ 
tem.  If  the  system  is  running  in  half-duplex, 
also  send  the  character  to  the  pc's  video  display 
(this  will  be  discussed  in  more  detail  below). 

5.  Check  to  see  if  an  incoming  character 
from  the  remote  system  is  ready  on  the  serial 
port.  If  no  character  is  there,  go  to  step  3. 

6.  Read  the  character  from  the  serial  port 
and  send  it  to  the  IBM  pc's  video  display,  then 
go  to  step  3. 

7.  The  program  reaches  this  step  when  the 
operator  pushes  escape  on  the  IBM  pc's  key¬ 
board.  The  display  is  cleared  and  set  back  to 
normal  video  mode.  TALK  prints  "Goodbye" 
and  returns  control  to  PC-DOS. 

Structure  of  TALK.  Like  the  two  programs 
in  last  month's  column,  TALK  is  written  for 
assembly  into  an  .Exe  file.  It  consists  of  a  Code 
Segment  containing  all  the  executable  machine 
instructions  for  the  program,  a  Data  Segment 
holding  various  variables  and  text  messages, 
and  a  Stack  Segment  that's  used  as  a  scratch 
area  by  the  machine's  PUSH,  POP  and  CALL 
instructions. 

Within  the  Code  Segment,  there  is  a  "main" 
procedure  named  TALK,  which  can  be  viewed 
as  the  master  control  for  this  program.  There 
are  also  a  number  of  small  subroutines  that 
handle  character  input /output  between  the 
TALK  program  and  the  pc's  keyboard,  video 
display,  and  serial  communications  adapter. 
These  smaller  subroutines  are  somewhat  more 
complicated  than  is  actually  necessary  for  suc¬ 
cessful  operation  of  TALK,  but  they  have  been 
designed  to  be  general  in  nature  so  you  can  eas¬ 
ily  incorporate  them  into  other  programs  of 
your  own  design. 

The  essential  subroutines  are  eight  in  num¬ 
ber  and  have  names  that  correspond  to  their 
function,  to  wit: 


for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


281 


COM  — STAT.  Get  the  status  of  the  com¬ 
munications  port  (in  other  words,  see  if  a  char¬ 
acter  is  waiting  to  be  input). 

COM  — IN.  Read  (input)  a  character  from 
the  communications  port. 

COM— OUT.  Write  (output)  a  character  to 
the  communications  port. 

PC  — STAT.  Get  the  status  of  the  pc's  key¬ 
board  (that  is,  check  to  see  if  a  key  has  been 
pressed). 

PC  — IN.  Read  (input)  a  character  from  the 
pc's  keyboard 

PC  — OUT.  Write  (output)  a  character  to 
the  pc's  video  display. 

CLEAR.  Clear  the  screen  and  set  it  to  the 
desired  display  mode. 

HOME.  Put  the  cursor  in  the  upper  left  cor¬ 
ner,  known  as  the  "home  position." 

A  Closer  Look  at  TALK.  Over  the  past  few 
months,  this  column  has  presented  several 
short  utilities  as  a  means  of  illustrating  use  of 
the  various  ROM  BIOS  drivers  that  are  built 
into  the  IBM  pc.  This  month's  program,  no  ex¬ 
ception,  is  designed  to  show  you  how  to  ex¬ 
ploit  the  serial  port  driver  that's  present  in  the 
ROM. 

The  proper  name  of  the  ROM  driver  is 
RS232— IO,  and  the  code  for  it  is  listed  on  page 
A-22  of  the  Technical  Reference  manual  ver¬ 
sion  2.0.  The  driver  provides  four  services:  It 


initializes  serial  port,  reads  serial  port  status, 
transmits  character  to  serial  port,  and  receives 
character  from  serial  port  (see  table  1).  This  is  a 
relatively  short,  simple  driver;  try  reading  the 
source  code  in  the  technical  manual  as  a  learn¬ 
ing  exercise;  it's  an  example  of  how  all  the 
ROM  BIOS  drivers  are  structured. 

Turning  now  to  the  internal  workings  of  the 
TALK  program,  we  encounter  several  com¬ 
mands  and  constructs  that  we  have  not  used  in 
previous  months'  columns.  On  line  3,  the  .LF- 
COND  statement  tells  the  assembler  to  list 
those  parts  of  the  source  code  that  are  not  actu¬ 
ally  assembled  because  a  conditional  statement 
has  been  evaluated  as  false.  Conditional  state¬ 
ments  are  extremely  handy  for  creating  pro¬ 
grams  that  can  be  assembled  for  different 
environments,  and  in  a  few  moments  we'll  see 
an  example  of  how  they  are  used. 

Lines  13  through  15  use  the  EQU  operator 
to  assign  symbolic  names  "cr",  "If",  and  "esc" 
to  the  corresponding  ASCII  codes;  these  in¬ 
structions  serve  only  to  make  the  assembly 
source  code  more  readable. 

Another  use  of  the  EQU  statement  is  shown 
in  lines  17  and  21.  Here  we  are  assigning  names 
to  values  we  are  likely  to  change  in  different 
assemblies  of  the  program.  By  equating  the 
real  value  to  a  symbolic  name  at  the  beginning 
of  the  program,  and  by  subsequently  referenc¬ 


ing  that  value  only  by  its  symbolic  name,  we 
make  it  much  easier  to  modify  the  program 
later. 

The  equate  in  line  17  creates  the  symbol 
ECHO,  which  is  used  in  a  conditional  state¬ 
ment  later.  ECHO  controls  whether  TALK  will 
be  assembled  to  communicate  with  a  full-du¬ 
plex  or  a  half-duplex  remote  system.  Full  du¬ 
plex  means  the  remote  system  "echoes,"  or 
returns,  a  copy  of  every  character  you  send  it; 
half  duplex  means  the  remote  system  echoes 
no  characters.  In  half  duplex,  TALK  must  send 
a  copy  of  each  character  you  type  to  the  IBM 
pc's  display  as  well  as  to  the  remote  system,  or 
you  won't  be  able  to  see  the  text  you're  enter¬ 
ing.  Almost  any  system  you're  likely  to  call 
these  days  will  be  full  duplex,  though;  so  for 
now  leave  this  equate  as  it  appears  in  the  list¬ 
ing. 

The  equate  in  line  21  specifies  which  serial 
port  your  modem  is  hooked  to.  The  value 
should  be  0  if  your  modem  is  on  Coml:  and  1 
if  it's  on  Com2:. 

The  SEGMENT  and  ENDP  statements  in 
lines  26  and  247  delimit  the  beginning  and  end 
of  the  Code  Segment,  as  discussed  last  month. 
The  Code  Segment  is  named  CSEG  in  this  ex¬ 
ample,  but  of  course  you  can  name  it  anything 
you  like.  The  ASSUME  command  in  line  28 
tells  the  assembler  which  parts  of  the  program 
the  various  Segment  Registers  will  point  to.  Be 
reminded  again  that  this  command  does  not 
actually  LOAD  the  Segment  Registers  with  the 
proper  values;  you  must  do  that  explicitly 
within  the  program  itself  (in  this  case,  the  SS 
and  CS  registers  are  set  up  correctly  by  PC- 
DOS  before  entry  to  TALK). 

Within  the  Code  Segment,  the  main  routine 
TALK  is  defined  by  the  PROC  and  ENDP 
statements  on  lines  30  and  123  respectively. 
The  main  communications  loop  is  contained 
within  lines  73  through  101.  The  logic  here  is 
quite  compact,  making  calls  to  the  various  out¬ 
side  routines  in  succession  in  order  to  obtain 
status  and  read  or  write  characters. 

Lines  84  through  90  are  particularly  inter¬ 
esting.  We  use  the  conditional  statement  IF 
ECHO  to  tell  the  assembler  whether  to  process 
the  subsequent  source  code  lines  up  to  the  next 
ENDIF  statement.  If  the  symbol  ECHO  was 
equated  to  a  nonzero  value  in  line  17,  it  will  be 
evaluated  as  true,  and  lines  87,  88,  and  89  will 
be  assembled  into  executable  machine  code.  If 
ECHO  is  false,  lines  87  through  89  will  be  ig¬ 
nored.  In  fact,  if  we  hadn't  included  the  .LF- 
COND  statement  at  the  beginning  of  the 
program,  these  lines  wouldn't  even  have  ap¬ 
peared  on  the  listing.  You  can  read  more  about 
conditional  assembly  on  pages  5-44  to  5-47  of 
the  Macro  Assembler  manual,  although  you 
may  still  find  that  a  little  heavy  going  at  this 
stage. 

Lines  125  through  170  contain  the  three 
subroutines  to  access  the  ROM  BIOS's  serial 


Function  0 — Initialize  Communications  Port 
Call  with: 

AH  =  0 

AL  =  initialization  parameter  (see  table  2) 

DX  —  communications  port  number  (0  or  1) 

Returns: 

AX  —  status  (see  table  3) 

Function  1 — Write  Character  to  Communications  Port 
Call  with: 

AH  =  1 
AL  =  character 

DX  =  communications  port  number  (0  or  1) 

Returns: 

AX  =  status  if  bit  15  is  not  set 

If  bit  15  is  set,  the  character  could  not  be  sent. 
Function  2 — Read  Character  from  Communications  Port 
Call  with: 

AH  -  2 

DX  =  communications  port  number  (0  or  1) 

Returns: 

AL  —  character 

AH  =  bit  7  set  if  serial  port  timed-out 

otherwise,  bits  1,  2,  3,  4, and  7  are  as 
described  in  status  request 
Function  3 — Status  Request 
Call  with: 

AH  «  3 

DX  =  communications  port  number  (0  or  1) 

Returns: 

AX  =  status 

Table  1:  Functions  available  from  the  ROM  BIOS  Serial  Port  driver 
through  software  interrupt  14H. 


282 


SOftalk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


EASY  to  USE  “VISUAL  SHELL”  for  DOS 


DIRECTORY  COMMAND  SYSTEM  for  the  IBM  PC  &  XT 

ldir  enables  the  user,  especially  the  new  user,  to  begin  taking 
advantage  of  the  PCs  power  right  away. 

ldir  replaces  the  DOS  prompt  with  an  interactive  command  system 
that  eliminates  the  need  to  type  commands  and/or  filenames  to  the 
command  line.  (See  Photo.) 

Load  files  and  run  programs  by  positioning  Idir’s  FILE  and 
COMMAND  CURSORS  and  pressing  the  <ENTER>  key. 


FUNCTIONAL  FEATURES 

—  UNIQUE  “1  Line”  BATCH  COMMAND  capability 

—  EASY  SCANNING  of  any  DIRECTORY 

—  “ALPHA  SEARCH”  for  FAST  file  LOCATION 

—  SORT  /  DISPLAY  files  by  NAME  or  EXTension 

—  REDISPLAYS  following  command  execution 

—  COMPATIBLE  with  DOS  1.10  and  2.00 

—  DISPLAYS  DOS  2.00  TREE  FILE  STRUCTURE 

—  REQUIRES  64K  min.  (96K  recommended)  +  1  drive 

—  RUNS  on  compatibles  -  e.g.,  COMPAQ,  CORONA, 

Columbia  .  .  . 

—  Also  includes  a  TUTORIAL  on  the  development  and  use  of 
consistent  and  “meaningful”  File  Specifications 

The  ULTIMATE  FILE  MANAGEMENT  TOOL 
PERFECT  for  HARD  DISK  systems 


Suggested  Retail 

>95.00 

+  $3.50  Shipping 


hy  Bourbaki  Inc. 


P.O.  Box  2867,  Boise,  ID  8370 1,  (208)  342-5849 


THE  ldir  SCREEN 


Drive  A 

|  Wane 

Ext 

Lid 

nna 

1  mum  | 

DATABASE 

►SUB-DIR 

EDITOR 

KJUB-DH 

Run  T! 

PENANCE 

►SUR0U 

TELECOM 

►SUR1IN 

1DIR 

COM 

9659 

AUTOEXEC 

BAT 

23 

CHKDSX 

COM 

1720 

COM  AND 

COM 

17664 

DISKCOFV 

COM 

2008 

DOS 

FNK 

162 

EDLIN 

COM 

2392 

FORMAT 

COM 

3016 

FUHKEY 

COM 

3633 

NODE 

COM 

2509 

A> 

H  Erase  jnenane  | 

Type  |  Copy 

►  Disk  Usage  4 
3  Hidden  files* 
13  User  files 
34304  bytes  left 
124416  bytes  used 
160256  bytes  total 

►►  Memory  Usage  44 

95312  bytes  left 
35760  bytes  used 
131072  bytes  total 


►►►  Today  Is  444 
Wednesday  the  20th 
9:32:27sm 


j  Toggles^ 


Laps  Lock 


Printer  Echo 


Execute!  Date 


The  1  DIR  -  Uersion  1,20  (c)  Copyright  Bourbaki,  Inc.  1983 


(ACTUAL  PHOTO) 


THE  ldir  KEYBOARD 


DELE  I  h  CHARACTER  COMMAND  CURSOR -RIGHT 

ON  COMMAND  LINE  \ 


SEPARATES  COMMANDS  I 
ON  BATCH  COMMAND  ' 
LINE  7 


DIRECTORY  •  BEGINNING 
I  FILE  CURSOR -UP* 


rjs  A 

m 

'  A 

r  \ 

Y  A 

7\ 6  JB  1 

1 _ 1 

< . \ 

r  -\ 

r  J 

r  2  > 

M 

jy 

1 

+ 

P 

JIv 

i  TOGGLES  IN  AND  OUT  OF  "SE I  UP" 


.  DIRECTORY  SCROLL  -  UP  PAGE 


»  IN  “COMPOSE”  MODE  -BRINGS 
KILE  "EXT*  TO  COMMAND  LINE* 


•  COMMAND  CURSOR  -  LEFT 


,  IN  “COMPOSE"  MODE -BRINGS 
FILE  “NAME"  IO  COMMAND  LINE* 


J  OIKKTDIO  -END 

INI  I  I  AIKS  “COMMAND" 


|  DIRECTORY  SCROLL-  DOWN  PAGE 

FILE  CURSOR  -  DOWN** 


*IN  "SET  UP" -CURSOR  UP 
•IN  “SET  UP" -CURSOR  DOWN 

•IN  “SET  UP”  -  TOGGLES  “PAUSE"  ON  OR  *4SORT*TO  FILE  “NAME" 
•IN  “SET  UP"  -  TOGGLES  “PAUSE"  OFF  OR  “SORT'TO  FILE  “EXT" 


NOTES: 

1)  TO  EXIT  TO  DOS  -  ENTER  “CONTROL  C"  (✓xC) 

2)  ESCAPE  KEY  (ESC)  IS  USED  I  O  DELETE 
THE  COMMAND  LINE 


port  driver.  With  the  aid  of  table  1,  which 
spells  out  the  various  arguments  and  returned 
values  for  the  driver  function  calls,  you  should 
find  these  three  short  pieces  of  code  easy  to  un¬ 
derstand*  The  COM  ~  STAT  routine  checks 
for  three  kinds  of  I/O  errors;  timeout  (which 
means  the  modem  didn't  respond  within  the 
allotted  time),  break  detect,  and  framing  error 
(basically  a  bit  synchronization  error).  If  one 
of  these  three  is  detected,  a  beep  will  be 
sounded.  Well  ignore  for  the  purposes  of  this 
simple  program  the  other  kinds  of  errors  that 
can  be  detected  (overrun,  parity,  and  the  like); 
that  way,  the  program  is  less  sensitive  to  how 
you  set  up  your  mode  command. 

Lines  171  through  218  contain  the  three 
subroutines  that  talk  to  the  pc's  keyboard  and 
video  display.  These  use  the  special  PC-DOS 
function  6,  known  as  "direct"  or  "raw  console" 
I/O.  Function  6  allows  you  to  read  and  write 
all  the  ASCII  codes,  including  control-break 
and  controI-C,  without  causing  PC-DOS  to 
take  any  special  action.  This  is  vital,  since 
many  bulletin  boards  and  other  remote  sys¬ 
tems  also  assign  special  meanings  to  certain 


control  codes — especially  to  control-C 

Function  6  is  unusual  as  PC-DOS  service 
calls  go  in  that  it  combines  the  status  request, 
output  request,  and  input  request  capabilities 
into  a  single  format.  It  is  derived  from  the  raw 
console  I/O  function  of  CP/M,  which  was 
added  to  version  2  of  that  operating  system  to 
keep  people  from  making  direct  calls  on  the 
CP/M  BIOS.  Because  of  this  heritage,  it  is  a 
little  more  tricky  to  use  than  the  normal  PC- 
DOS  display  and  keyboard  I/O  calls. 

The  biggest  problem  to  handle  is  that  when 
you  call  function  6  for  a  status  request,  you 
also  get  back  the  character  itself,  if  one  is  ready 
for  input— even  if  you  aren't  ready  to  process 
it  yet.  Our  PC  —  STAT  routine  copes  with  this 
problem  by  storing  the  character  into  a  vari¬ 
able  named  IN— CHAR,  where  it  can  be  picked 
up  later  by  the  "real"  input  subroutine,  named 
PC  —  IN.  To  put  it  another  way,  the  main 
TALK  program  regards  PC  — IN  as  the  source 
of  characters,  but  PC  —  STAT  contains  the  true 
input  interface  to  PC-DOS, 

Read  this  code  carefully.  It's  brief,  but  it  ex¬ 
emplifies  several  techniques  that  you'll  need  to 


use  again  and  again.  Also  look  at  the  detailed 
description  of  function  6  on  page  D-19  of  the 
PC-DOS  2.0  manual. 

The  CLEAR  and  HOME  subroutines  may 
be  found  in  lines  219  through  245.  They  call 
the  ROM  BIOS's  video  driver  to  initialize  the 
screen  and  set  the  cursor  position*  Refer  to  the 
October  installment  of1  this  column  for  a  de¬ 
tailed  explanation  of  these  functions. 

Finally,  to  finish  up  the  program,  the  SEG¬ 
MENT  and  ENDS  statements  on  lines  250  and 
271  define  a  Data  Segment  named  DSEG,  and 
lines  274  and  280  delimit  a  similar  Stack  Seg¬ 
ment  named  STACK.  The  former  holds  con¬ 
stants  and  variables  used  by  the  program  and 
addressed  via  the  Data  Segment  Register  (DS), 
and  the  latter  is  a  scratch  area  addressed  with 
the  Stack  Segment  Register  (SS), 

Readers'  comments  about  the  programs 
published  here  are  very  helpful.  Please  feel  free 
to  write  in  and  tell  us  how  we  can  make  this 
section  of  the  magazine  more  useful  to  you. 
Address  your  comments  to  Right  To  Assemble, 
So  ft  al  k/ IBM,  Box  60,  North  Hollywood,  CA 
91603,  k 


Bits  7  6  5  4  3 

baud  rale  parity 

000  «  110  baud  XC  —  rone 

001  =  150  baud  01  =  odd 

010  =  300  baud  II  =  even 

011  =  600  baud 

100  =  1200  baud 

101  -  2400  baud 

110  -  4800  baud 

111  =  9600  baud 

Table  2:  Initialization  byte  for  serial  port. 


2 

stop  bits 
0  —  1  bit 
1  =  2  bits 


10 

word  length 

10  —  7  bits 

11  -  8  bits 


AH  =  port  status 
Bit  Significance 
7  Time  out 

6  Trans  shift  register  empty 
5  Trans  hold  register  empty 
4  Break  detect 
3  Framing  error 
2  Parity  error 
1  Overrun  error 
0  Data  ready 

Table  3:  Explanation  of  Serial  Port 


AL  —  modem  status 
Bit  Significance 
7  Received  line  signal  detect 
6  Ring  indicator 
5  Data  set  ready 
4  Clear  to  send 
3  Delta  rev  line  signal  detect 
2  Trailing  edge  ring  indicator 
1  Delta  data  set  ready 
0  Delta  clear  to  send 
driver  status  word 


rum* 

talk 

SJ 

;TOtHf  if  id  eo,  the  livi 

(“If* 

55.133 

53 

rknows  ht'r  talking  to  rht  modem. 

lit  aril 

:l!*L  fllw  Conditionals  Ion 

53 

HIE* 

TALK  — dumb  terminal  emulator' 

51 

Wlft 

bj  ur 

mm 

ah,  15 

'RkI  us*  mad*"  funtHon 

55 

;«f  tbr  ROM  03OS  vld»  driver  lo 

:  TALK — a  dump  terminal  emublor  1  ai  the 

56 

WI5 

CD  10 

Int 

lek 

iftnd  [hr  number  af  columns  on 

JAM  PC,  to  illustrate 

UH  of  Ihu  ROM  IttOI 

57 

Ml  A 

F£CC 

d*f 

ah 

;lhc  display,  save  it  (or  use 

;  Jtyncjirnndnis  cnmffiUflkJtiutn  l  ird  support. 

51 

.  b  j  lb*  screen  dear  rouim 

59 

MIC 

m  26  ESDI  R 

IMV 

ffllummah 

:  Copyright  lc)  1933  Ray  Duncan 

a 

M2fl 

3C  03 

emp 

aJ,7 

rciuke  tor*  dlipiay  is  text  mod*. 

;  Mfy  w  freely  repraducrJ  fur  h«fi  commercial 

4i 

W33 

74  0A 

i* 

Ulkl 

'.fnede  7  ok.  proo*ed 

61 

0034 

jcm 

(ntp 

al,} 

■  OWE} 

<rr  uitu 

fcLh 

j  ASCII,  carrlakn  return 

fcl 

0036 

7*96 

jbr 

Ulkl 

;modn  fl“3  ok.ptotwdl 

*  ABBA 

If 

9ah 

:A5TI]  bnrfnd 

64 

W33 

BA  Mil  R 

mar 

etn.offs*! 

ini|3 

-  LliB 

r*f  eq.ii 

Ibh 

jASCII  tKipt  cnli1 

65 

&at 

EUtffQ 

\™P 

talk* 

jpilrJI  error  rne^jt*  and  *dl 

-  rew 

tfltu  rqn 

0 

jleive  this  hid  In  run 

67 

003  E 

talk!; 

jcommumcatlons  full -duplex. 

65 

W3F 

B7  7{J 

mov 

bh,70h 

;  no-w  clear  screen  and  set  lo 

;duJt|}r  ID  —l  if  half-duplex 

f9 

Wdfl 

E 0  MBS  R 

call 

dear 

ireverse  video  aUnbul*  79h. 

70 

;a!s&  pui  |he  mrwr  in  lh* 

comm  _  pert  eqo 

0 

;Hl  to  0  of  1  depending 

71 

M15 

EPWC7& 

rail 

hociH 

;opper  left  comer  dI  screen. 

;t>it  which  c.  inrun  p-orl  Lx 

71 

chunked  ir:  your  modem 

73 

74 

:lfils  is  the  main  loop  ol 

75 

ike  communkal lofts  program. 

two 

dip  hflHHIi 

pJra  public  CODF,J 

7ft 

77 

MJft 

l&  OMK  r 

talkJ: 

rail 

p* — ifal 

;elreck  diargslcr  waiting 

assume 

71 

.frum  the  IBM  JJC  keyboard 

79 

MJ9 

74  0 A 

1* 

UilA 

;no 

oeed 

talk  prot 

fir 

;rntry  pcunl  from  PC-DGS 

to 

M3EI 

Efi®WF  a 

call 

pt-  ill 

ireod  char.  From  l*C  keyboard 

11 

M3F. 

3C  IB 

tmp 

j|,HC 

:3» it  the  ESCape  key? 

COM  IE 

push 

d* 

:sav*  DS  fXSW  on  Dirk 

A3 

M49 

74  J0 

lalkS 

;yes,  nil  the  UTntinal  emuralor 

OWE  JJCfl 

KHf 

ixn 

jfor  final  call  lo  FC-DOi. 

U 

{■ecu  » 

push 

*4 

af  mnnin^  hiNujtln,  echo 

Iinikt  data  Irea  addressable 

K 

jibe  character  Id  the  PC  display 

IWOfl  M  R 

mov 

ir.HX  Hs*f 

96 

■r 

•Ag 

W07  BE  D6 

nrav 

dt,i> 

07 

push 

I»vi  copy  of  Ike  diaiactef 

M 

calf 

pt.tMl 

;wnd  it  to  the  rC  display 

intake  sure  Eh*  modem  isnii-liiK1 

34 

pop 

b 

.now  restore  4  h*  character 

«*>?  E?  fi 

fall 

com  —  slit 

;by  theckiiqt  lh*  “Data  S*t 

90 

endll 

,  Read/'  bH  in  the  status  wurd. 

■JJ 

wee  AA  2fl 

[Hi 

93 

0042 

E  0 0033  R 

tall 

W  uul 

;Svrite  (bar.  is  the  comm  pon 

WOE  75  fc 

w 

■Jdkl 

jil  t’i 1  is  on,  ok  lo  proceed. 

93 

94 

0045 

E*  00*2  R, 

laEk4 

tall 

;dief  k  if  character  wailing 

;bit  Lx  fim  on,  pr l*t  'vimlnf 

95 

jfrmn  i  h*  comm  port 

:irmsax*  and  erdt. 

96 

0018 

74  EC 

fr 

Iiik3 

-ftd  [*Op 

W10  BA  M03  R 

mov 

dr. offset 

rnijtl 

97 

KVlA 

El  DOTH  R 

eaU 

fom-lD 

jrtad  diar.  from,  comm  port 

Wl  3  ES  (4« 

[mp 

la  Ik  ft 

90 

ESWfll  « 

caU 

pt  — out 

jwritr  jt  Id  the  PC  display 

001* 

till®: 

slnitlaliTr  ibedhfilay  to 

1W 

now  do  it  all  ariiiii 

2R4 


SDftatk 


cose  EB  E4 


M52  07  c 7 

M54  DHJ0H&R 

mis?  E*  ooc?  R 


W5A  SA  MU  7  R 
(BSD  E4C* 

M5F  CD  21 


(W78 

0078 

W7F 

MJBfl 

Kd2 

MW3 


ba  cotv 
B4  02 
CD  14 

a 


fall 

0.11 


talk  endp 


;E5C  key  pnpin 

jio  tail  I  he  Itnuiul  emulator. 

;first  Hi  the  display  back 
,(o  lurml  nJw.  w  the  uw 
;will  krtctw  he'i  talking  to 
:the  PC  and  not  the  -modem. 

bh  .S7h  ;?  if  the  "attribute"  for 

clear  mormat  video  display, 

home  Jjl»  put  CUriiir  in  Upper 

;l*fl  hand  corner  of  wrttn, 

.print  farewell  mnuy 
d*, offset  ms§3 

*h,9  ;uh  PC-DOS  function  9  to 

21h  ;  print  the  ilTinp  whose  iddmf 

;is  in  rrp\l  L-r  DX. 

;n9w  return-  to  PC  ■DOS. 


:lhi*  routine  reads  status 

jfrom  the  COM  port,  mums 

,'Z ™ false  II  character  read y 

;Z  =  l rue  II  nothing  waiting 

;AH  “  tine  dalui,AL  mod  pm  status 


;read  a  character  from  the 
rCQM  port,  return  ll  in  AL. 
;  register  DX  destroyed. 

prne  pear 

rtiUv  di.^Qfiiqr-.  prl 

mov  ah,  2  ;use  ROM  BIOS  ddyeA 

JnrL  lAh  ;  hi  nrt  bon  2  to  get  char. 


n7 

izi 


(NBC  B6  IB 

WBL  89  MW 

wci  eao«M 


MC4  CD  10 

sec*  a 


MC7 

flOC7 

ffiXTA 

OflCC 

®CE 

(X>DO 

MIDI 

MIDI 


07  ft} 
04  02 
CD  10 


0000 

0000 


home  proc 
mov 


home 

«** 


130 

;ce|{isrce  DX  destroyed. 

252 

DOM 

00 

In  — char 

db 

131 

0062 

coot  _  par 

piw 

near 

253 

132 

0062 

BA  00W 

mov 

dss.comrn  — 

ptui 

254 

0001 

00 

columns 

dh 

m 

0O« 

IM  03 

cnov 

ah,  3 

juse  ROM  OIOS  driver's  function 

255 

m 

000? 

CD  14 

Jnt 

14h 

j3  to  gel  status,  also 

25b 

135 

0069 

F6C4  90 

test 

ah.098h 

;c  btch  conttn  port  error  flags 

257 

0002 

0D  0A  43  6*  65  63 

"V**1 

db 

13* 

006C 

;for  timeout  .hrcaMraming  error. 

25* 

oB  20  79  oF  75  72 

137 

7504 

frn 

com  —  err 

;tnar  was  detected,  bf*p. 

159 

20  60  6f  64  65  60 

13* 

240 

2E 

139 

mz 

tom  —stall 

;l«t  thr  data  ready  hit. 

261 

0015 

0D  PA  24 

db 

14* 

v»l 

U  C4  01 

Irtt 

ahrl 

^returning  Z  Han  ■“false  If 

262 

0010 

OP  0A  44  69  73  70 

nvsg2 

db 

14V 

0C7I 

C3 

ret 

rcharacler  wailing. 

263 

6C  61  79  20  6D  75 

142 

264 

7J  74  2062  65  20 

141 

0072 

50 

com  —  err: 

pmh 

an 

jcammunkaliorts  error  delected 

265 

74  65  7*  74  20  6D 

144 

«73 

A0  07 

mov 

al,T 

266 

6F  64  6$  2E 

145 

0075 

FB  GOBI  R 

tall 

PC— Hit 

;send  a  bell  Code  IO  the  PC 

267 

con 

0D0A  24 

dh 

14b 

0073 

5* 

pop 

u 

jthen  go  return  comm  status 

26* 

l»37 

CD  0A  OA  47  dF  6f 

nwgj 

db 

147 

m* 

EBF3 

jmp 

COm  -stall 

269 

64  61  70  65  2E 

14* 

270 

0042 

CD  0A  24 

db 

149 

fWTB 

com  —  slat 

endp 

271 

0045 

dscg 

ends 

;ss  rile  (hr  character  in  At- 
:lg  the  COM  port, 
^register  DX  destroyed. 


dhr24  DL.DH  ±-  X  A  of  lower  rEnJit 

iccuner  of  "window", 
ex*  ;CL.CB  -  XFY  of  upper  left 

icorner  of  "window'''. 

a*,6Wh  ;AH  ■  6  for  '’stroll  or  inrtiafiie 
;  window"  Function,.  AL =0  for 
;  number  of  lines  to  scroll. 

Iflh  -call  ROM  BIOS  video  driver. 


jhoroe  the  cursor,  l.e. 
put  it  In  the  upper  left 
;  cotne-r  of  the  KHtr. 
j  registers  AX.BX.DX  dr^lrgyrd. 

near 

da,*  ;i,DLrDHl  -^fX.Y)  for  new 

;tur*Or  pcwllion,  both  arc  0, 
bhr0  ;BH  u  video  page 

ah,  1  rfunriion  InHt  cursor 

lflh  ;cal  BOM  BIOS  video  driver. 


para  rDATAr 

d  :PC  keyboard  input  char. 

0  ^highest  numbered  column  in 

^current  display  mode  3*  or  79i 

cr,  tf /Check  your  modem.' 


crFlf/$' 

crrIEr'DispJay  must  U  leaf 


crFlfF-S' 

ciJUICoJbw,' 

trlf.'S 


para  stack  "STACK 

jalluw  04  bytes  in  this  case 

i-ri  dup  (El 


talk 


164 

ft:  a.1 

com  _  out 

ptac 

neat 

If5 

M83 

BAMB0 

mov 

dxpComm  _ 

port 

16* 

MJ36 

B4  81 

mov 

jh,l 

ruse  ROM  BIOS  drivers 

147 

t\M3 

CD  14 

EnS 

14  h 

rluncliun  1  to  send  char. 

166 

MMA 

C3 

ret 

If? 

WWE 

com  -  out 

i3rtdp 

17* 

171 

;read  djlm  lor  |he  IBM 

172 

:  PCs  keyboard,  returns 

U3 

J.  ■  false  il  character  ready 

174 

jZ  =  true  if  nothing  walling. 

175 

register  DX  destroyed. 

176 

MSB 

pc— slat 

pm 

near 

177 

;ll  a  character  k  already 

17* 

j  wall  intjiHl  return  status 

179 

0CSB 

At  0000  R 

mOv 

alrln— char 

130 

POSE 

0A  Cfi 

ur 

alr»l 

1*1 

B»0 

75  QB 

jna 

pc-Hatl 

1*2 

0092 

84  06 

mov 

ah,  6 

;olherwtse  call  PC-OOS  to 

1*3 

0094 

BIFF 

nuv 

dl,CJfh 

^determine  status 

1*4 

0096 

CD  21 

Iol 

21  h 

1*5 

009* 

74  63 

i* 

pc-Oatl 

;jump,  nothing  ready 

166 

:gp|  a  char,  save  it  for 

1*7 

;"pc  _  1  n'  routine. 

133 

0O9A 

A2  0CO0  H 

mov 

in  _  chjLr.al 

169 

W9D 

pc  -statl: 

;rt!um  Id  caller  with 

19B 

(»9D 

Q 

tel 

;Z  flag  Kt  appropriately 

191 

009E 

pc-slat 

endp 

192 

393 

read  a  character  Irom  the 

m 

;IBM  PC's  keyboard,  return 

195 

;it  in  AL.  DX  may  be  destioyed. 

196 

KSE 

pc  — in 

prof 

near 

193 

0B9C 

A0MN0R 

rmrav 

akin-char 

19fl 

M9AI 

0A  CO 

-or 

aka] 

;any  character  waiting? 

199 

00  A3 

75  05 

Jnz 

pc ,  ini 

;yes,  return  it  to  tiller 

m 

(NAS 

EBOffiB  R 

call 

pc— stal 

;lry  and  read  a  character 

201 

00A3 

EBF4 

Jmp 

pc  — in 

202 

00  AA 

31 E* 

pc  -  itll: 

«or 

akaN 

;ciear  the  character 

203 

jwalieg  Rag 

204 

00AC 

W26(H00li 

mov 

In  — char,  th 

2*5 

Ml  80 

C3 

ret 

; tw.it  with  AL  =  char 

206 

2U7 

00BI 

pc— in 

endp 

20* 

as 

iwrlle  the  character  In  AL 

210 

;lu  the  PC's  display. 

211 

register  DX  desitoyed. 

212 

00UJ 

pc  — out 

proc 

near 

213 

KFE1 

BA  Dt 

mov 

dLal 

use  PC-DOS  function  6  to 

214 

0AB3 

84  06 

mov 

ah.6 

;scnd  the  character,  it  Ignores 

215 

0C-E5 

con 

ini 

21  h 

control  characters  so  they 

216 

«ai 

<3 

ml 

:can  ^  passed  on  tp  thr 

217 

CABS 

pk-aul 

endp 

;nmote  system. 

21B 

219 

OCEB 

char 

proc 

near 

idwr  the  dkplay  and  set 

226 

j  il  lu  thr  attribute  in  BH. 

221 

rreipstrrs  AX,  CXr  DX  destroyed. 

222 

PAB8 

BA  16  0901  R 

mov 

dkcolumns 

Segments  and  groups: 


Njini 

Sire 

combine 

da** 

CSEG . 

UQUJ 

PARA 

pubuc 

CODE 

DSEG  . . . . 

0035 

PARA 

NONE 

DATA 

STACK  . . . . 

MV1Q 

PARA 

STACK 

rSTACK' 

Symbols: 

Name 

Type 

Value 

Attr 

CLEAlt  . 

N  PROC 

OOH0 

CSEG 

Length  =OOOF 

COLUMNS . 

L  BYTE 

0001 

L5SEC 

COMM  PORT  . . . 

Number 

0000 

COM  ERR . 

L  NEAR 

0072 

CSEG 

COM  IN . 

N  PROC 

007B 

CSEG 

Lenglh  ~OO0S 

COM  OUT  . 

N  PROC 

0065 

CSEG 

Len^fh  -  0006 

COM  STAT  . . 

N  PROC 

0062 

CSEG 

Len^lli  -0019 

COM  5TAT1 

t  NEAR 

DIME 

CSEG 

CR  . 

Number 

000  D 

ECHO . . . . 

Number 

0000 

ESC  . . . . . . 

Number 

O01B 

HOME .  . 

N  PROC 

O0C7 

CSEG 

Length  COCA 

IlSf  CHAR . 

L  BYTE 

0000 

D5EC 

Lf . 

Number 

000A 

MSG  I  . 

L  BYTE 

0002 

DSEG 

MSG2  . 

L  BYTE 

001B 

DSEG 

MSG3  . . . 

L  BYTE 

0037 

DSEG 

PC  -  IN . 

N  PROC 

0O9E 

CSEG 

Length  ^0013 

PC  INI  . 

L  NEAR 

00  A  A 

CSEG 

PC -OUT . 

N  PROC 

OOBl 

CSEG 

Length  “0007 

PC ~ STAT  . .  tFH 

N  PROC 

00  SB 

CSEG 

Length  “0015 

PC  STAT1  . 

L  NEAR 

0090 

CSEG 

TALK  . . . . 

F  PROC 

0000 

CSEG 

Length  =0062 

TALK l . 

L  NEAR 

0016 

CSEG 

TALK2  . .  ....  . . 

L  NEAR 

OOZE 

CSEG 

TALK3 . 

L  NEAR 

0036 

CSEG 

TALK4 . . . . . 

L  NEAR 

0045 

CSEG 

TALKS  . . . . 

L  NEAR 

0052 

CSEG 

TALK6 . 

L  NEAR 

C05D 

CSEG  . 

Warning  Severe 

Errors  Errors 

0  0 


for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


285 


HEROISM  IN  THE 

MODERN  AGE 


THE  ROLE-PLAYING  GAME  OF  TODAY 


©  Copyright  1983  Pacjrtc  lnfotech  Corp, 


■  The  first  truly  complete 
computerized  role-playing  system, 

*  A  multi-character  role-playing 
game  which  is  vast  in  scope, 
allowing  hundreds  of  incredibly 
detailed  characters  of  your  own 
creation, 

*  A  sophisticated  simulation  of 
modern  life  and  human 
psychology. 

*  A  test  of  creative  thinking  ,and 
imagination, 

*  A  game  designed  especially  for  the 
IBM  PC* 

*  The  only  system  realistic  enough 
to  be  believable  in  real-life  rather 
than  a  fantasy  setting. 

Your  Starter  Pack  contains  2  full 
diskettes  and  detailed  manuals. 

The  game  has  2  parts: 

1.  BASIC  MODULE  —  which  allows 
you  to  create  characters  and  guide 
them  through  their  lives.  You  can 
have  the  computer  create 
characters  —  giving  them  names, 

a  family  background,  and 
psychological  and  physical 
makeup  —  or  you  can  custom- 
design  characters,  perhaps  to 
represent  people  in  real-life, 

2,  PROJECT  CONTACT 

Scenario  #1  —  which  allows  you 
to  take  characters  from  the  Basic 
Module  or  pre-created  characters 
on  a  secret  mission  to  save  the 
United  States  from  a  mad  scientist 
and  a  terrorist  plot.  You  must  use 
all  of  your  character's  abilities  and 
skills  and  technological  tools  to 
find  clues,  persuade  allies, 
question  suspects,  fly  helicopters 
and  fight  battles.  You  have  only 
60  hours  to  complete  your 
mission,,, 

HEROISM  IN  THE  MODERN  AGE 
is  expandable,  with  other  modules 
available  . 


MORE  THAN  JUST  A  GAME ... 

PROJECT  CONTACT  Scenario#! 


at  your  computer  store 


SYSTEM  REQUIREMENTS : 

IBM  PC  *  with  one  double-skied  or  fyio 

sided  disk  drives,  art  80-cohimn  monitor  and  64K 

RAM  mKfor  DOS  2.0). 

Color  $raphfcs/ adaptor  optional 
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softcilk  presents 
the  bestsellers 

Software  sales  in  the  month  of  October  were  less  than  exciting, 
but  a  couple  of  curious  developments  seem  to  merit  attention. 

First  is  the  spreadsheet  market,  where  the  old  standbys  seem 
to  be  making  a  comeback;  and  second  is  the  word  processing 
market,  where  WordStar  stubbornly  refuses  to  yield  ground  to 
newer  programs. 

Among  the  pundits,  there's  a  real  question  as  to  who  is  buying 
those  other  spreadsheet  products.  Lotus's  3-2-3  is  so  dominant,  it 
doesn't  seem  as  though  there's  room  for  other  software*  3-2-3  is 
so  strong,  its  market  share  is  larger  than  that  of  all  American  car 
manufacturers  combined.  2-2-3  is  so  dominant,  it  has  a  larger 
market  share  than  Standard  Oil  before  it  was  broken  up.  2-2-3  has 
a  bigger  market  share  of  spreadsheets  than  IBM  has  of  mainframes. 

The  only  example  of  a  larger  enterprise  than  2-2-3  that  comes 
to  mind  is  Ma  Bell,  and  she'll  diminish  in  size  next  month  to 
become  a  smaller  factor  in  her  markets  than  3-2-3  is  in  its. 

Nevertheless,  there's  still  life  in  the  rest  of  the  spreadsheet 
products.  VisiGslc  continues  to  show  strength,  and  during  Octo¬ 
ber  regained  the  runnerup  spot  in  the  genre  from  Multiplan,  Mi¬ 
crosoft's  entry  remains  viable  also. 

But  the  big  surprise  was  the  resurgence  of  SuperCakl.  The 
upgrade  of  SuperCalc  had  looked  to  be  moribund,  but  October  told 
a  different  story.  Sales  of  Sorcirn's  product  were  not  just  up¬ 
grades,  but  new  adherents,  implying  new  strength  for  the  old 
CPfM  bellwether. 

None  of  the  contenders  appears  ready  for  a  serious  run  at 
1-2-3,  but  their  persistence  is  astonishing  experts  everywhere. 

WordStar  took  back  its  lead  in  the  word  processing  derby  as 
WordPerfect  dropped  to  fourth  in  the  genre  and  twelfth  overall 
But  MicroPro's  flagship  product  is  clearly  under  siege, 

MultiMate ,  the  Wang  word  processing  lookalike,  continues  to 
stalk  WordStar ,  moving  into  fourth  position  among  all  software, 
even  though  it  lost  a  little  ground  relative  to  WordStar,  MultiMate' s 
progression  through  the  chart  has  been  consistent,  almost  leaving 
the  impression  that  accession  to  the  top  spot  is  inevitable. 

But  there  are  other  products  hoping  to  play  havoc  with  that 
possibility.  Software  Publishing  Corporation's  PFS:  Write  contin¬ 
ues  as  a  strong  contender  after  a  promising  debut  fueled  by  an 
imaginative  marketing  introduction.  PFS: Write  also  lost  ground 
relative  to  WordStar  in  October,  but  its  continued  presence  in  the 
top  ten  indicates  acceptance  by  a  multitude  of  pc  owners. 

WordPerfect ,  which  last  month  temporarily  dethroned  WordStar 
as  top  dog  among  word  processors,  suffered  some  from  shortages 
on  dealers'  shelves  in  October.  Lack  of  dealer  inventory  will  hurt 
any  product,  but  it  is  particularly  severe  for  products  like  WordPer¬ 
fect  that  lack  the  wider  distribution  of  other  top-selling  products. 
Nevertheless,  it  managed  a  respectable  showing  that  portends 
that  it's  in  the  market  for  a  long  run. 

Three  other  word  processors  made  the  Top  Thirty  and  two 
others  hovered  just  off  the  list.  Volksiuriter  continues  selling  well 
although  MultiMate  has  grabbed  some  of  its  share  of  the  software- 
exdusively  retail  market,  where  Volkswriter  was  once  the  domi¬ 
nant  pc  word  processor. 

Easy  Writer  2, 1  and  VisiWord  popped  in  on  the  bottom  of  the  Top 
Thirty,  Easy  Writer  11  and  WordPlus-FC  were  just  outside  the  list. 

Showing  signs  of  early  strength  was  Word,  from  Microsoft, 
available  in  November  and  doing  a  brisk  business  in  some  areas. 
This  release  would  seem  to  be  the  last  event  defining  the  word 


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Payment:  □  Check  or  M.O.  Dvisa  □MasterCard 

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softaik  far  the  /f?M  Personal  Compute*  December  1983 


287 


processing  marketplace.  Now  the  jockeying  for  long-term  posi¬ 
tion  and  market  share  should  commence  in  earnest. 

Three  programs  appear  to  have  no  major  competition  in  their 
respective  genres.  That  seems  an  almost  incredible  situation,  in 
that  the  large  number  of  pc  owners  would  appear  too  tempting  a 
market  to  leave  to  just  one  program.  Nevertheless,  dBase  II,  Cross¬ 
talk,  and  PFS:File  seem  to  have  clear  sailing. 

Ashton-Tate's  dBase  11  has  swept  the  database  management 
field.  Several  databases  are  maintaining  a  fair  level  of  sales  with¬ 
out  making  any  serious  inroads  in  market  share. 

PFS.File  seems  to  be  dominating  the  filing  program  share  of 
the  market  with  ease,  although  there  are  far  fewer  contenders  in 
the  field.  VisiDex  seems  to  be  running  a  distant  second. 

Crosstalk  has  apparently  put  IBM's  Asynchronous  Communica ¬ 


IBM-franchised  retail  stores  representing  approximately  4.17  percent  of  all  sales  of 
IBM  and  IBM-related  products  volunteered  to  participate  in  the  poll. 

Respondents  were  contacted  early  in  November  to  ascertain  their  sales  for  the  month 
of  October. 

The  only  criterion  for  inclusion  on  the  list  was  the  number  of  units  sold;  such  other 
criteria  as  quality  of  product,  profitability  to  the  computer  store,  and  personal  preference 
of  the  individual  respondents  were  not  considered. 

Respondents  in  November  respresented  every  geographical  area  of  the  continental 
United  States. 

Results  of  the  responses  were  tabulated  using  a  formula  that  resulted  in  the  index 
number  to  the  left  of  the  program  name  in  the  Top  Thirty  listing.  The  index  number  is  an 
arbitrary  measure  of  relative  strength  of  the  programs  listed.  Index  numbers  are  correla¬ 
tive  only  to  the  month  in  which  they  are  printed;  readers  cannot  assume  that  an  index 
rating  of  50  in  one  month  represents  equivalent  sales  to  an  index  number  of  50  in  another 
month. 

Probability  of  statistical  error  is  plus  or  minus  5.08  percent,  which  translates  roughly 
into  the  theoretical  possibility  of  a  change  of  5.41  points,  plus  or  minus,  in  any  index 
number. 


It  might  cost  you  $50,000  and 
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to  get  an  art  degree.  But  even 
if  you  can't  draw  a  straight 
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Computer  with  PCcrayon. 

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tions  Support  2.0  package  in  second  place  for  good.  Data  Capture-pc 
and  Transend  are  far  behind. 

The  overwhelming  business  orientation  ot  the  pc  can  be  de¬ 
duced  from  the  weakening  sales  of  Home  Accountant  Plus,  which 
earlier  was  one  of  the  leading  software  sellers.  Inasmuch  as  no 
home  finance  package  has  come  forth  with  a  serious  challenge  to 
Home  Accountant  Plus,  its  relative  weakness  must  be  attributed 
more  to  the  business  orientation  of  the  computer  than  to  dimin¬ 
ishing  popularity  or  strengthened  competition. 


the  cop  chircij 

This  Last 


Month  Month 

Index 

1. 

1. 

366.84 

1-2-3,  Mitch  Kapor  and  Jonathan  Sachs;  Lotus 
Development 

2. 

6. 

99.79 

WordStar;  MicroPro 

3. 

4. 

93.13 

dBase  II,  Wayne  Ratliff;  Ashton-Tate 

4. 

8. 

82.68 

MultiMate;  Softword  Systems 

5. 

10. 

68.42 

Crosstalk;  Microstuf 

6. 

2. 

60.82 

PFS:File,  John  Page  and  D.D.  Roberts; 
Software  Publishing  Corporation 

7. 

12. 

50.37 

VisiCalc,  Software  Arts /Dan  Bricklin  and 
Robert  Frankston;  VisiCorp,  IBM 

8. 

6. 

37.06 

Multiplan,  Microsoft;  IBM 

8. 

37.06 

PFS:Write,  Sam  Edwards,  Brad  Crain,  and  Ed 
Mitchell;  Software  Publishing  Corporation 

10. 

3. 

36.11 

Microsoft  Flight  Simulator,  Bruce  Artwick; 
Microsoft 

11. 

15. 

34.21 

Asynchronous  Communications  Support  2.0; 
IBM 

12. 

5. 

30.41 

WordPerfect,  Alan  Ashton  and  Bruce  Bastian; 
Satellite  Software  International 

13. 

30.41 

Norton  Utilities,  Peter  Norton;  Peter  Norton 
Inc. 

14. 

30. 

22.80 

SuperCalc2;  Sorcim 

11. 

22.80 

Basic  Compiler,  Microsoft;  IBM 

16. 

16. 

19.95 

Macro  Assembler,  Microsoft;  IBM 

17. 

29. 

19.00 

PC  Tutor,  Lora  Meise  and  Rick  Lane; 
Comprehensive  Software  Support 

— 

19.00 

General  Ledger,  Peachtree;  IBM 

19. 

28. 

18.05 

Cdex  Training  for  the  IBM  PC,  Rohit  Patel; 
Cdex  Corporation 

20. 

21. 

17.10 

Home  Accountant  Plus,  Mike  Farmer,  Bob 
Schoenburg,  Larry  Grodin,  and  Steve  Pollack; 
Continental  Software 

21. 

21. 

16.15 

The  Instructor,  Jo-L  Hendrickson;  Individual 
Software 

22. 

19. 

15.20 

Volkswriter,  Camilo  Wilson;  Lifetree 

23. 

13. 

14.25 

PFS:Report,  John  Page;  Software  Publishing 
Corporation 

24. 

24. 

13.30 

MasterType,  Bruce  Zweig;  Lightning  Software 

25. 

26. 

12.35 

ProKey,  David  Rose;  RoseSoft 

26. 

19. 

11.40 

Typing  Tutor,  Michael  Sierchio  (Dick 
Ainsworth  and  A1  Baker);  IBM  (Microsoft) 

— 

11.40 

PFS:Graph,  Bessie  Chin  and  Stephen  Hill; 
Software  Publishing  Corporation 

28. 

10.45 

Easy  Writer  1.1,  John  Draper;  IBM 
(Information  Unlimited  Software) 

— 

10.45 

VisiWord;  VisiCorp 

— 

10.45 

Zork  I,  Infocom 

288 


softolk  for  the  IBM  Personal  Computer  December  1983 


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With  TLM:  iy  Your  Micro  is  Bigger 

Than  Yxi  Thought. 


Make  no  mistake  about  it,  T.I.M. 
IV  is  not  just  another  update.  Its  a 
brand  new  version  of  the  popular 
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For  openers,  TLM.  IV  has  rela¬ 
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In  addition,  the  designers  of 
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